CERN Accelerating science

Article
Report number	astro-ph/0511390 ; PID143727 ; PID-143727
Title	The X-ray Telescope of the CAST Experiment
Author(s)	Kotthaus, Rainer (Munich, Max Planck Inst.) ; Bräuninger, H. (Garching, Max Planck Inst., MPE) ; Friedrich, P. (Garching, Max Planck Inst., MPE) ; Kang, D. (Freiburg U.) ; Hartmann, R. (PNSensor GmbH) ; Kuster, M. (Garching, Max Planck Inst., MPE) ; Lutz, G. (Munich, Max Planck Inst.) ; Strüder, L. (Garching, Max Planck Inst., MPE)
Publication	2005
Imprint	14 Nov 2005
Number of pages	5
In:	52nd IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 23 - 29 Oct 2005, pp.1067-1071
DOI	10.1109/NSSMIC.2005.1596436
Subject category	Astrophysics and Astronomy
Accelerator/Facility, Experiment	CAST
Abstract	The CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) searches for solar axions employing a 9 Tesla superconducting dipole magnet equipped with 3 independent detection systems for X-rays from axion-photon conversions inside the 10 m long magnetic field. Results of the first 6 months of data taking in 2003 imply a 95 % CL upper limit on the axion-photon coupling constant of 1.16x10(-10) GeV(-1) for axion masses < 0.02 eV. The most sensitive detector of CAST is a X-ray telescope consisting of a Wolter I type mirror system and a fully depleted pn-CCD as focal plane detector. Exploiting the full potential of background suppression by focussing X-rays emerging from the magnet bore, the axion sensitivity obtained with telescope data taken in 2004, for the first time in a controlled laboratory experiment, will supersede axion constraints derived from stellar energy loss arguments.

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