Related papers: Axions, Instantons, and the Lattice
The strong sphaleron rate, i.e., the rate of real time QCD topological transitions, is a key phenomenological quantity, playing a fundamental role in several physical contexts. In heavy-ion collisions, a non-vanishing rate can lead to the…
QCD axions can be a substantial part of dark matter if their mass $m_a\sim10^{-5}$eV. Since the axions were created by the misalignment mechanism, their local energy spectrum density is large. Consequently, the axion-induced atomic…
We show, without using semiclassical approximations, that, in high-temperature QCD with chiral symmetry restoration and U(1) axial symmetry breaking, the partition function for sufficiently light quarks can be expressed as an ensemble of…
The QCD topological observables are essential inputs to obtain theoretical predictions about axion phenomenology, which are of utmost importance for current and future experimental searches for this particle. Among them, we focus on the…
Recently we studied the direct detection of multi-component dark matter with arbitrary local energy densities. Although the generation of the dark matter relic abundance is model-dependent, and in principle could be only indirectly related…
Stable dark matter particles may arise as pseudo-Goldstone bosons from the confinement of dark quarks interacting via a non-Abelian gauge force. Their relic abundance is determined not by annihilations into visible particles but by dark…
The present paper concludes our investigations on the QCD cross-over transition temperatures with 2+1 staggered flavours and one-link stout improvement. We extend our previous two studies [Phys. Lett. B643 (2006) 46, JHEP 0906:088 (2009)]…
The next generation of axion direct detection experiments may rule out or confirm axions as the dominant source of dark matter. We develop a general likelihood-based framework for studying the time-series data at such experiments, with a…
We present a lattice determination of the heavy-quark diffusion coefficient in (2+1)-flavor QCD with almost physical quark masses. The momentum and spatial diffusion coefficients are extracted for a wide temperature range, from $T=163$ MeV…
We compute instanton sizes and study correlation functions between instantons and monopoles in maximum abelian projection within SU(2) lattice QCD at finite temperature. We compare several definitions of the topological charge, different…
We study the role of small-size instantons in the determination of the topological susceptibility of the 2-d $O(3) \: \sigma $ model on the lattice. In particular, we analyze how they affect the non-perturbative determination, by Monte…
Recent cosmological observations suggest the presence of small but nonzero cosmological constant $\Lambda_{cos}^4 \simeq (2 \times 10^{-3} eV)^4$. It is an intriguing possibility that such a small cosmological constant is supplied by the…
We propose experimental schemes for detection an axionic condensate supposed to be cosmic dark matter. Various procedures are considered in dependence on the value of the axion mass. There are well known indications that a large part of the…
QCD at finite temperature and density is becoming increasingly important for various experimental programmes, ranging from heavy ion physics to astro-particle physics. The non-perturbative nature of non-abelian quantum field theories at…
Composite dark matter candidates, which can arise from new strongly-coupled sectors, are well-motivated and phenomenologically interesting, particularly in the context of asymmetric generation of the relic density. In this work, we employ…
In some models of thermal relic dark matter, the relic abundance may be set by inelastic scattering processes (rather than annihilations) becoming inefficient as the universe cools down. This effect has been called coscattering. We present…
QCD matter at finite temperature and density is a subject that has witnessed very impressive theoretical developments in the recent years. In this review I will discuss some new insights on the microscopic degrees of freedom of the QCD…
I review some recent lattice results on studying chiral and deconfinement transition in QCD at finite temperature and density, as well as properties of strongly interacting matter at high temperatures. I discuss lattice results on the…
We study the topological susceptibility, chi, in QCD with two quark flavours using the lattice field configurations recently produced by the UKQCD collaboration. We find clear evidence for the expected suppression at small quark mass, and…
Charmonia produced in initial hard parton scatterings during heavy ion collisions move with respect to the medium rather than flow with the medium. Lattice studies suggest that charmonium bound states at the rest are dissociated at…