Related papers: Axions, Instantons, and the Lattice
The quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion arises as the pseudo-Goldstone mode of a spontaneously broken abelian Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry. If the scale of PQ symmetry breaking occurs below the inflationary reheat temperature and the domain…
Relic thermal axions could play the role of an extra hot dark matter component in cosmological structure formation theories. By combining the most recent observational data we improve previous cosmological bounds on the axion mass m_a in…
This is the last in a series of papers on the topological susceptibility in the interacting instanton liquid model (IILM). We will derive improved finite temperature interactions to study the thermodynamic limit of grand canonical Monte…
We present the results on topological susceptibility and chiral observables in $N_f=2+1+1$ QCD for temperature range $120<T<600$ MeV. The lattice simulations are performed with Wilson twisted mass fermions at physical pion, strange and…
We consider the production of axion dark matter through the misalignment mechanism in the context of a nonstandard cosmological history involving early matter domination by a scalar field with a time-dependent decay rate. In cases where the…
For {\it low} T new strict results for the instanton density n(T) are reported. Using the PCAC methods, we express n(T) in terms of {\it vacuum} average values of certain operators, times their {\it calculated} T-dependence. At high T, we…
In compact stellar environments, the stability of dense QCD matter requires the simultaneous fulfillment of charge neutrality and beta equilibrium. In this work, we study how temperature and finite chemical potential affect QCD topology and…
The QCD axion is a good dark matter candidate. The observed dark matter abundance can arise from misalignment or defect mechanisms, which generically require an axion decay constant $f_a \sim \mathcal{O}(10^{11})$ GeV (or higher). We…
The axion mass receives a large correction from small instantons if the QCD gets strongly coupled at high energies. We discuss the size of the new CP violating phases caused by the fact that the small instantons are sensitive to the UV…
We study instanton effects in QCD at very high baryon density. In this regime instantons are suppressed by a large power of $(\Lambda_{QCD}/\mu)$, where $\Lambda_{QCD}$ is the QCD scale parameter and $\mu$ is the baryon chemical potential.…
The properties of axions that constitute 100% of cold dark matter (CDM) depend on the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ at the end of inflation. If $r=0.20^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$ as reported by the BICEP2 collaboration, then "half" of the CDM axion…
If the early universe is dominated by an energy density which evolves other than radiation-like the normal Hubble-temperature relation $H\propto T^2$ is broken and dark matter relic density calculations in this era can be significantly…
Axions currently provide the most compelling solution to the strong CP problem. These particles may be copiously produced in the early universe, including via thermal processes. Therefore, relic axions constitute a hot dark matter component…
Axions coupled to thermal non-Abelian gauge fields may have cosmological significance. As the heat bath defines a frame, its influence depends separately on energy and momentum. A light-like momentum ($k \approx \omega$) is relevant for the…
The relic density of dark matter in the $\Lambda$CDM model restricts the parameter space for a cosmological axion field, constraining the axion decay constant, the initial amplitude of the axion field and the axion mass. It is shown via…
If dark matter is made of QCD axions, its abundance is determined by the vacuum expectation value acquired by the axion field during inflation. The axion is usually assumed to follow the equilibrium distribution arising from quantum…
Modulo the scale of spontaneous breaking of Peccei-Quinn symmetry, the axion mass $m_a(T)$ is given by the QCD topological susceptibility ${\chi}(T)$ at all temperatures $T$. From an approach tying the $U_A(1)$ and chiral symmetry breaking…
It is shown that the post-inflationary quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion need not lead to a unique one-parameter prediction for the dark matter abundance whenever small explicit Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking becomes dynamically relevant…
We examine the contribution of small instantons to the axion mass in various UV completions of QCD. We show that the reason behind the potential dominance of such contributions is the non-trivial embedding of QCD into the UV theory. The…
Instanton liquid in heated and strongly interacting matter is studied using the variational principle. The dependence of the instanton liquid density (gluon condensate) on the temperature and the quark chemical potential is determined under…