Design and performance of the ALPS II regeneration cavity

The regeneration cavity (RC) is a critical component of the Any Light Particle Search II (ALPS II) experiment. It increases the signal from possible axions and axion-like particles in the experiment by nearly four orders of magnitude. The total round-trip optical losses of the power circulating in the cavity must be minimized in order to maximize the resonant enhancement of the cavity, which is an important figure of merit for ALPS II. Lower optical losses also increase the cavity storage time, and with the 123 meter long ALPS II RC we have demonstrated the longest storage time of a two-mirror optical cavity. We measured a storage time of 7.17±0.01ms, equivalent to a linewidth of 44.4 Hz and a finesse of 27,500 at a wavelength of 1064 nm.