PASSAT at future neutrino experiments: Hybrid beam-dump-helioscope facilities to probe light axionlike particles

There are broadly three channels to probe axionlike particles (ALPs) produced in the laboratory: through their subsequent decay to Standard Model (SM) particles, their scattering with SM particles, or their subsequent conversion to photons. Decay and scattering are the most commonly explored channels in beam-dump type experiments, while conversion has typically been utilized by light-shining-through-wall (LSW) experiments. A new class of experiments, dubbed PASSAT (particle accelerator helioscopes for slim axionlike-particle detection), has been proposed to make use of the ALP-to-photon conversion in a novel way: ALPs, after being produced in a beam-dump setup, turn into photons in a magnetic field placed near the source. It has been shown that such hybrid beam-dump-helioscope experiments can probe regions of parameter space that have not been investigated by other laboratory-based experiments, hence providing complementary information; in particular, they probe a fundamentally different region than decay or LSW experiments. We propose the implementation of PASSAT in future neutrino experiments, taking a DUNE-like experiment as an example. We demonstrate that the magnetic field in the planned DUNE multipurpose detector is already capable of probing the ALP-photon coupling down to gaγγ∼few×10-5 GeV-1 for ALP masses ma 10 eV. The implementation of a CAST or BabyIAXO-like magnet would improve the sensitivity down to gaγγ∼10-6 GeV-1.