Physicists at the ALPS II collaboration have reported the first results from the Any-Light-Particle-Search (ALPS) II experiment: the most sensitive instrument of its kind in the search for hypothetical “axions.” Headed by Axel Lindner at the DESY Research Centre in Germany, the collaboration found no evidence for axions in this initial campaign, but its results offer valuable guidance for future runs: tightening the search for one of the most promising candidates for dark matter.

The research has been posted as a preprint on arXiv and will be published in Physical Review Letters.