English

Axions of Evil

High Energy Physics - Theory 2018-09-12 v2

Abstract

We provide a systematic framework for theories of multiple axions. We discover a novel type of "alignment" that renders even very complex theories analytically tractable. Theories with about 100 axions and random parameters have an exponential number of meta-stable vacua and accommodate a diverse range of inflationary observables. Very light fields can serve as dark matter with the correct abundance. Tunneling from a minimum with large vacuum energy can occur via a thin-wall instanton and be followed by a sufficient period of slow-roll inflation that ends in a vacuum containing axion dark matter and a cosmological constant with a value consistent with observation. Hence, this model can reproduce many macroscopic features of our universe without tuned parameters.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1703.00453,
  title  = {Axions of Evil},
  author = {Thomas C. Bachlechner and Kate Eckerle and Oliver Janssen and Matthew Kleban},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.00453},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T18:32:41.498Z