Related papers: Axion Kinetic Misalignment Mechanism
A QCD axion with a decay constant below $ 10 ^{ 11} ~{\rm GeV} $ is a strongly-motivated extension to the Standard Model, though its relic abundance from the misalignment mechanism or decay of cosmic defects is insufficient to explain the…
Axions are produced during a period of dilaton-driven inflation by amplification of quantum fluctuations. We show that for some range of string cosmology parameters and some range of axion masses, primordial axions may constitute a large…
We provide a systematic framework for theories of multiple axions. We discover a novel type of "alignment" that renders even very complex theories analytically tractable. Theories with about 100 axions and random parameters have an…
In this work we consider the effect of an $R^2$ term on the kinetic misalignment axion theory. By using the slow-roll assumptions during inflation and the field equations, we construct an autonomous dynamical system for the kinetic axion,…
Despite growing interest and extensive effort to search for ultralight dark matter in the form of a hypothetical dark photon, how it fits into a consistent cosmology is unclear. Several dark photon dark matter production mechanisms proposed…
Current techniques cannot detect axion dark matter over much of its parameter space, particularly in the theoretically well-motivated region where the axion decay constant f_a lies near the GUT and Planck scales. We suggest a novel…
A popular proposal for resolving the Hubble tension involves an early phase of dark energy, driven by an axion field with a periodic potential. In this paper, we argue that these models are tightly constrained by the axion weak gravity…
We show that axion phenomenology may be significantly different than conventionally assumed in theories which exhibit late phase transitions (below the QCD scale). In such theories one can find multiple pseudoscalars with axion-like…
The motion of a local source inducing small oscillations in the gravitational field is investigated and shown to exhibit pure rotational kinetic energy. Should the net affect of these slow, revolving oscillations cause large-scale rotations…
Recently, a novel phenomenon is observed for vacuum decay to proceed via classically allowed dynamical evolution from initial configurations of false vacuum fluctuations. With the help of some occasionally developed large fluctuations in…
We propose a new non-thermal mechanism of dark matter production based on vacuum misalignment. A global $X$-charge asymmetry is generated at high temperatures, under which both the will-be Higgs and the dark matter are charged. At lower…
A generic low-energy prediction of string theory is the existence of a large collection of axions, commonly known as a string axiverse. Axions also have a natural cosmological production mechanism, vacuum misalignment, making them…
While no regularization is consistent with the anomalous chiral symmetry which occurs for massless fermions, the artificial axion-induced symmetry for massive fermions is shown here to be consistent with a standard regularization, even in…
An axion background field induces tiny oscillating electric and magnetic fields in an external static magnetic field. This signature is used to search for axion dark matter. We use standard quantum field theory techniques to obtain an…
Based on considerations of quantum gravity, global symmetries which lead to axions as pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons after low scale symmetry breaking cannot be exact at the Planck scale. Here, we show that Planck-suppressed terms which…
We argue that if axions are the dark matter, their coupling to electromagnetism results in exponential growth of a helical magnetic field when the axion field first rolls down its potential. After an inverse cascade, the relevant length…
Dark photons could be produced resonantly by the oscillating axion field in the early universe. This resonant production mechanism has been used in various contexts, including dark photon dark matter and primordial magnetic field…
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…
Dark photons can be resonantly produced in the early universe via their coupling to an oscillating axion field. However, this mechanism typically requires large axion--dark photon couplings or some degree of fine-tuning. In this work, we…
The default assumption of early universe cosmology is that the postinflationary universe was radiation dominated until it was about 47000 years old. Direct evidence for the radiation dominated epoch extends back until nucleosynthesis, which…