X-ray detectors for the BabyIAXO solar axion search

International audience; BabyIAXO is a helioscope under construction to search for an emission of the axion particle from the Sun. At the same time it serves as an intermediate stage towards the International Axion Observatory (IAXO). An integral component of this experiment is a low background X-ray detector with a high efficiency in the 1–10 keV energy range. Micromegas detectors are considered as baseline technology for BabyIAXO thanks to the relatively high efficiency and very low background level. Other detector technologies developed to reach better energy resolution while maintaining high efficiency and low background level are also under study. In this paper, we review the BabyIAXO design and present the analysis of data taken with the prototype of an IAXO Micromegas detector. A background level of 8.8×10−7counts keV−1cm−2s−1 was reached.