Related papers: The Axiverse Extended: Vacuum Destabilisation, Ear…
String theory has been claimed to give rise to natural fuzzy dark matter candidates in the form of ultralight axions. In this paper we revisit this claim by a detailed study of how moduli stabilisation affects the masses and decay constants…
In this work we explore the effect of a non-Abelian dark sector gauge group that couples to the axion field. In particular, we analyze effects that arise if the dark sector gauge group mixes topologically with the Standard Model. This is…
We estimate the cosmological abundance of a modulus field that has dilatonic couplings to gauge fields, paying particular attention to thermal corrections on the modulus potential. We find that a certain amount of the modulus coherent…
Motivated by the couplings of the dilaton in four-dimensional effective actions, we investigate the cosmological consequences of a scalar field coupled both to matter and a Maxwell-type vector field. The vector field has a background…
We review current cosmological constraints on the axion. We describe the basic mechanisms by which axions are created in the early universe, focussing on the standard thermal scenario where the dominant process is through axion radiation by…
In supersymmetric theories, the Peccei-Quinn symmetry has a complex extension as a symmetry of the superpotential, so that the scalar potential always has an almost flat direction, the dilaton. We discuss how coherent oscillation of the…
We critically review the role of cosmological moduli in determining the post-inflationary history of the universe. Moduli are ubiquitous in string and M-theory constructions of beyond the Standard Model physics, where they parametrize the…
The origin of dark matter in the universe may be weakly interacting scalar particles produced by amplification of quantum fluctuations during a period of dilaton-driven inflation. We present two interesting cases, the case of small…
In this work, we investigate the dark sector of a supersymmetric axion model, consisting of the late-decaying gravitino/axino dark matter and axion dark radiation. In the early universe, the decay of the scalar superpartner of the axion…
We give an explicit realization of the "String Axiverse" discussed in Arvanitaki et. al \cite{Arvanitaki:2009fg} by extending our previous results on moduli stabilization in $M$ theory to include axions. We extend the analysis of…
The cosmological scenario where the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is broken after inflation is investigated. In this scenario, topological defects such as strings and domain walls produce a large number of axions, which contribute to the cold dark…
Dark matter interacts gravitationally, but it presumably interacts weakly through other channels, especially with respect to regular luminous matter. We look at different ways in which dark matter may couple to other fields. We briefly…
The accelerating expansion of the universe presents an exciting, fundamental challenge to the standard models of particle physics and cosmology. I highlight some of the outstanding challenges in both developing theoretical models and…
It is widely believed that string theory easily allows for a QCD axion in the cosmologically favoured mass range. The required small decay constant, $f_a\ll M_P$, can be implemented by using a large compactification volume. This points to…
The quest to understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy motivates a deep exploration into axion physics, particularly within the framework of string theory. Axions, originally proposed to solve the strong CP problem, emerge as…
We present a new mechanism to deplete the energy density of the QCD axion, making decay constants as high as $f_a \simeq 10^{17}\,\rm{GeV}$ viable for generic initial conditions. In our setup, the axion couples to a massless dark photon…
Cosmology with a three-form field interacting with cold dark matter is considered. In particular, the mass of the dark matter particles is assumed to depend upon the amplitude of the three-form field invariant. In comparison to coupled…
In gravitational theories with extra dimensions, it is argued that the existence of a positive vacuum energy generically implies catastrophic instability of our four-dimensional world. The most generic instability is a decompactification…
As indicated by Einstein's general relativity, matter and geometry are two faces of a single nature. In our point of view, extra dimensions, as a member of the {\em geometry face}, will be treated as a part of the {\em matter face} when…
Axions and other light particles appear ubiquitously in physics beyond the Standard Model, with a variety of possible couplings to ordinary matter. Cosmology offers a unique probe of these particles as they can thermalize in the hot…