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Laboratory constraints on peV-scale mass splitting between ordinary and sterile neutron states

N. J. Ayres, Z. Berezhiani, G. Bison, K. Bodek, V. Bondar, P. -J. Chiu, M. Daum, C. B. Doorenbos, S. Emmenegger, K. Kirch, V. Kletzl, J. Krempel, B. Lauss, D. Pais, I. Rienäcker, D. Ries, D. Rozpędzik, P. Schmidt-Wellenburg, K. S. Tanaka, J. Zejma, N. Ziehl, G. Zsigmond

hep-exarXiv:2608.12173

Abstract

Sterile states of matter, represented by a parallel ``mirror'' sector, may contribute to the observed dark matter in the Universe. We investigated the parameter space of neutron (n) to mirror-neutron (n') oscillations, in the case where the two states are not necessarily mass-degenerate, taking into account interactions in the mirror sector. By tuning the magnitude of an applied magnetic-field in the range 5~μT < B < 360~μT to corresponding resonance conditions for finite mass splitting, we derive exclusion limits for the n-n' oscillation time constant reaching about 20~s over the mass-difference range 0.3 - 22~peV. In parts of this parameter range, our limits exceed the model-dependent neutron-star-cooling bound, providing the first experimental constraints in this scenario that are more stringent than this astrophysical estimate.

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