Matthias Schwarz Universität Hamburg, Hamburger Sternwarte

Search for Hidden Photons (pdf)

The Solar Hidden Photon Search (SHIPS) is a joint project of the Hamburger Sternwarte and DESY. The main target is to detect the solar emission of a new species of particles, so called Hidden Photons (HPs), also known as paraphotons. Photons and HPs convert into each other as they propagate in the same fashion that neutrinos oscillate among different flavors, or kaons among different CP eigenstates. A small amount of solar HPs can be efficiently converted into photons in a long and straight vacuum pipe. The Sun could then be observed continuously in the 'light' of HPs with a SHIPS helioscope. These adapted astronomical telescopes employ imaging optics and low-flux detectors in a vacuum chamber to achieve high sensitivity, contrast and spatial resolution.