QUAX

(QUaerere AXion, or: QUest for AXions)

The QUAX experiment is aimed to the study of the interaction of the cosmological axion with the spin of fermions (electrons or nucleons). In fact, due to the motion of the Solar System through the galactic halo, the Earth is effectively moving through the cold dark matter cloud surrounding the Galaxy and an observer on Earth will see such axions as a wind.

A possible detector for the axion wind can be a magnetized sample with Larmor resonance frequency tuned to the axion mass by means of an external polarizing static magnetic field. The interaction with the axion field will drive the total magnetization of the sample, and so produce oscillations in the magnetization that, in principle, can be detected.