English

QCD Axion Dark Matter in the Dark Dimension

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-04-15 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

The recently proposed dark dimension scenario reveals that axions can be localized on the Standard Model brane, thereby predicting the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion decay constant from the Weak Gravity Conjecture: faM51091010GeVf_a\lesssim M_5 \sim 10^{9}-10^{10}\, \rm GeV, where M5M_5 is the five-dimensional Planck mass. When combined with observational lower bounds, this implies that faf_a falls within a narrow range fa1091010GeVf_a\sim 10^{9}-10^{10}\, \rm GeV, corresponding to the axion mass ma103102eVm_a\sim 10^{-3}-10^{-2}\, \rm eV. At this scale, the QCD axion constitutes a minor fraction of the total cold dark matter (DM) density 103102\sim 10^{-3}-10^{-2}. In this work, we investigate the issue of QCD axion DM within the context of the dark dimension and demonstrate that the QCD axion in this scenario can account for the entire DM abundance through a simple two-axion mixing mechanism. Specifically, we consider the resonant conversion of an axion-like particle (ALP) into the QCD axion. We find that, in a scenario where the ALP possesses a mass of approximately mA105eVm_A \sim 10^{-5} \, \rm eV and a decay constant of fA1011GeVf_A \sim 10^{11} \, \rm GeV, the QCD axion in the dark dimension can account for the overall DM. The ALP required within this specific range may originate from the grand unification of gauge forces in the dark dimension.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.19426,
  title  = {QCD Axion Dark Matter in the Dark Dimension},
  author = {Hai-Jun Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.19426},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

22 pages, 2 figures. Published in JHEP