Related papers: Axions, Higher-Groups, and Emergent Symmetry
In recent work we showed that the relic dark matter abundance of QCD axions can be altered when the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) field is coupled to very light scalar/s, rendering the effective axion mass dynamical in the early universe. In this work…
Global strings (those which couple to Goldstone modes) may play a role in cosmology. In particular, if the QCD axion exists, axionic strings may control the efficiency of axionic dark matter abundance. The string network dynamics depend on…
We extend the duality symmetry between the electric and the magnetic fields to the case in which an additional axion-like term is present, and we derive the set of Maxwell's equations that preserves this symmetry. This new set of equations…
Axions, grand unification, and string theory are each compelling extensions of the Standard Model. We show that combining these frameworks imposes strong constraints on the QCD axion mass. Using unitarity arguments and explicit string…
Multiple axions form a landscape in the presence of various shift symmetry breaking terms. Eternal inflation populates the axion landscape, continuously creating new universes by bubble nucleation. Slow-roll inflation takes place after the…
It is proposed that a non-Abelian adjoint two-form in BF type theories transform inhomogeneously under the gauge group. The resulting restrictions on invariant actions are discussed. The auxiliary one-form which is required for maintaining…
The Chern-Simons actions of the multiple fundamental string and the multiple gravitational wave are established to full order in the background fields. Gauge invariance is checked. Special attention is drawn to the non-Abelian gauge…
Gauge symmetries emerge from a redundant description of the effective action for light degrees of freedom after the decoupling of heavy modes. This redundant description avoids the use of explicit constraints in configuration space. For…
We initiate the systematic construction of gauged matter-coupled supergravity theories in two dimensions. Subgroups of the affine global symmetry group of toroidally compactified supergravity can be gauged by coupling vector fields with…
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…
The effects of possible explicit violation of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry responsible for the solution of the strong CP problem are studied in supersymmetric models. It is shown that automatic models with an abelian $U(1)$ gauge symmetry are…
It is well known that charges coupled to a pure Chern-Simons gauge field in (2+1) dimensions undergo an effective change of statistics, i.e., become anyons. We will consider several generalizations thereof, arising when the gauge field is…
Inspired by the possibility of high-scale supersymmetry breaking in the string landscape where the cosmological constant problem and the gauge hierarchy problem can be solved while the strong CP problem is still a challenge for naturalness,…
We investigate viable scenarios with various axions in the context of supersymmetric field theory and in globally consistent D-brane models. The Peccei-Quinn symmetry is associated with an anomalous U(1) symmetry, which acquires mass at the…
The idea that the gravity-induced breaking of global symmetries is encoded in Planck-suppressed operators is not scale-invariant: heavy particles which have nothing to do with the UV completion of gravity can mediate the breaking and…
We present results of new field-theoretic simulation of cosmological axion strings, which are eight times longer than previous ones. We have upgraded our simulation of physical strings in Hiramatsu et al. (2011) in terms of the number of…
We consider the coupling of axions to gauge bosons in higher-dimensional Grand Unified Theories (GUT) inspired by string theory constructions with D-branes on orbifold singularities, the so-called orbifold GUTs. Due to their topological…
Motivated by recent discussions and the absence of exact global symmetries in UV completions of gravity we re-examine the axion quality problem (and naturalness issues more generally) using antisymmetric Kalb-Ramond (KR) fields rather than…
This is a general introduction to duality in field theories. The existence and breaking of global symmetries is used as a guideline to systematically prove duality between different field theories. Systems discussed include abelian and…
In this paper we continue our investigation of the global categorical symmetries that arise when gauging finite higher groups and their higher subgroups with discrete torsion. The motivation is to provide a common perspective on the…