Related papers: The Axiverse Extended: Vacuum Destabilisation, Ear…
The standard model of cosmology relies on the existence of two components, "dark matter" and "dark energy", which dominate the expansion of the Universe. There is no direct proof of their existence, and their nature is still unknown. Many…
We study the cosmology of multi-field Dark Energy, using a well-motivated axio-dilaton model that contains the minimal number of fields to have the 2-derivative sigma-model interactions that power-counting arguments show naturally compete…
It is often the case that scalar fields are produced in the early Universe in the form of coherent oscillation. These scalar fields may have huge abundances and affect the evolution of the Universe. In particular, if the lifetime is long…
If there are a plethora of axions in nature, they may have a complicated potential and create an axion landscape. We study a possibility that one of the axions is so light that it is cosmologically stable, explaining the observed dark…
Coupled dark sector models have gained significant attention, motivated by recent advances in cosmology and the pressing need to address unresolved puzzles. In this work, we study coupled scalar dark sector models inspired by…
Axion and axion-like particles (ALPs) are a prominent candidate for physics beyond the Standard Model, and can play an important role in cosmology, serving as dark matter or dark energy, or both, drawing motivation in part from the string…
The evolution of cosmic perturbations in a two-component ultralight axionic universe is investigated. We present the first spectral computation of perturbations in multi-component universes. A particular case composed of light extreme…
We show that a recent constraint on the cosmic birefringence effect due to dark energy can be related to the constraints on the coupling of axion dark matter to photon, by relying on a simple model of two-axion alignment mechanism with…
A new mechanism for producing axion dark matter is proposed. By invoking low-scale inflation and a kinetic mixing between the axion and the inflaton, it is shown that the axion is driven to a field point slightly displaced from the…
We study cosmological solutions of (pseudo)scalar theories with periodic potentials, in the presence of arbitrary cosmological fluids -- including a cosmological constant of either sign. Independently of the initial misalignment angle and…
Axion-like dark matter whose symmetry breaking occurs after the end of inflation predicts enhanced primordial density fluctuations at small scales. This leads to dense axion minihalos (or miniclusters) forming early in the history of the…
Axions seem ubiquitous in string theories and some of them may be produced non-thermally by heavy scalar decays, contributing to dark radiation. We study various cosmological effects of photons produced from the axionic dark radiation…
Ultra-light axions ($m_a\lesssim 10^{-18}$eV), motivated by string theory, can be a powerful probe of the energy scale of inflation. In contrast to heavier axions the isocurvature modes in the ultra-light axions can coexist with observable…
Current cosmological data indicate that our universe contains a substantial component of dark vacuum energy that is driving the cosmos to accelerate. We examine the immediate and longer term consequences of this dark energy (assumed here to…
In this paper, dark energy is modelled via a spherically symmetric quintessence scalar field $\varphi$, the dynamics of which are found to be analogous to a pendulum. This is due to a driving axion potential $V(\left|\varphi\right|)$, whose…
In an undulant universe, cosmic expansion is characterized by alternating periods of acceleration and deceleration. We examine cosmologies in which the dark-energy equation of state varies periodically with the number of e-foldings of the…
Currently there is no definitive description for the accelerated expansion of the Universe at both early and late times; we know these two periods as the epochs of inflation and dark energy. Contained within this Thesis are two studies of…
Recently, two of the present authors showed that even when the axion momentum is much smaller than its mass, the axion can still behave like radiation if its energy density greatly exceeds the maximum potential energy set by the cosine-type…
Understanding the late-time acceleration of the Universe is one of the major challenges in cosmology today. In this paper, we present a new scalar field model corresponding to a generalised axion-like potential. In fact, this model can be…
We establish a new self-consistent model in order to explain from a unified viewpoint two key features of the cosmological evolution: the inflation in the early Universe and the late-time accelerated expansion. The key element of this new…