Related papers: The QCD Axion at Finite Density
The naturalness problem of PQ symmetry motivates study of the heavy QCD axion, with masses $m_a >$ 1 MeV generated at scales above the QCD scale, and low values of the PQ symmetry breaking scale, $f_a$. We compute the abundance of such…
We study the impact of axion emission in simulations of massive star explosions, as an additional source of energy loss complementary to the standard neutrino emission. The inclusion of this channel shortens the cooling time of the nascent…
We study the influence of a high density behaviour of the nuclear symmetry energy on a kaon condensation in neutron stars. We find that the symmetry energy typical for several realistic nuclear potentials, which decreases at high densities,…
If the dark matter particles are axions, gravity can cause them to coalesce into axion stars, which are stable gravitationally bound systems of axions. In the previously known solutions for axion stars, gravity and the attractive force…
Axions mix with neutral pions after the QCD phase transition through their common coupling to the radiation bath via a Chern-Simons term, as a consequence of the $U(1)$ anomaly. The non-equilibrium effective action that describes this…
The high temperature and electron degeneracy attained during a supernova allow for the formation of a large muon abundance within the core of the resulting proto-neutron star. If new pseudoscalar degrees of freedom have large couplings to…
We investigate medium effects due to density-dependent magnetic moments of baryons on neutron stars under strong magnetic fields. If we allow the variation of anomalous magnetic moments (AMMs) of baryons in dense matter under strong…
We present a theoretical model for detecting axions from neutron stars in a QCD phase of quark matter. The axions would be produced from a quark-antiquark pair $u\bar{u}$ or $d\bar{d}$, in loop(s) involving gluons. The chiral anomaly of QCD…
Axions may be produced thermally inside the cores of neutron stars (NSs), escape the stars due to their feeble interactions with matter, and subsequently convert into X-rays in the magnetic fields surrounding the stars. We show that a…
The growth of adiabatic density perturbations during an era of early matter domination induces $\mathcal{O}(1)$ fluctuations in pre-inflationary QCD axion dark matter across a broad, string-theory-motivated parameter space. Remarkably, at…
The QCD axion is one of the best motivated dark matter candidates. The misalignment mechanism is well known to produce an abundance of the QCD axion consistent with dark matter for an axion decay constant of order $10^{12}$ GeV. For a…
Recent observations of neutron stars, combined with causality, thermodynamic stability, and nuclear constraints, indicate a rapid stiffening of QCD matter at densities slightly above nuclear saturation density ($n_0 \simeq 0.16\,{\rm…
Neutron stars (NS's) with their strong magnetic fields and hot dense cores could be powerful probes of axions, a classic benchmark of feebly-coupled new particles, through abundant production of axions with the axion-nucleon coupling and…
The coupling between axions and photons modifies Maxwell's equations, introducing a dynamo term in the magnetic induction equation. In neutron stars, for critical values of the axion decay constant and axion mass, the magnetic dynamo…
Cosmological structure formation simulations of ultralight axion-like dark matter have shown that an axion star forms at the center of every dark matter halo in the Universe. These axion stars would then form in large numbers during the…
We use a variational procedure to study finite density QCD in an approximation in which the interaction between quarks is modelled by that induced by instantons. We find that uniform states with conventional chiral symmetry breaking have…
If dark matter carries a baryon number of two, neutron-antineutron oscillations could require its presence to manifest themselves. If it is in addition very light, in the micro-eV range or up to a few orders of magnitude below, these…
We investigate the role of higher order couplings, along with the condensation of antikaons ($K^-$ and $\bar K^0$), on the properties of neutron star (NS). We employ extended versions of the relativistic mean-field model, in which…
Neutron stars provide ideal astrophysical laboratories for probing new physics beyond the Standard Model. If axions exist, photons can develop linear polarization during photon-axion conversion in the magnetic field of a neutron star. We…
The minimal geometric deformation (MGD) paradigm is here employed to survey axion stars on fluid branes. The finite value of the brane tension provides beyond-general relativity corrections to the density, compactness, radius, and…