Related papers: Trapping Effect for QCD Axion Dark Matter
We study in detail the dynamics of a scalar field in thermal bath with symmetry breaking potential. In particular, we focus on the process of trapping of a scalar field at an enhanced symmetry point through the thermal/non-thermal particle…
For the minimal QCD axion model it is generally believed that overproduction of dark matter constrains the axion mass to be above a certain threshold, or at least that the initial misalignment angle must be tuned if the mass is below that…
We study the Witten effect of hidden monopoles on the QCD axion dynamics, and show that its abundance as well as isocurvature perturbations can be significantly suppressed if there is a sufficient amount of hidden monopoles. When the hidden…
It is often the case that scalar fields are produced in the early Universe in the form of coherent oscillation. These scalar fields may have huge abundances and affect the evolution of the Universe. In particular, if the lifetime is long…
We study cosmological effects of explicit Peccei-Quinn breaking on the QCD axion dark matter. We find that the axion abundance decreases or increases significantly depending on the initial position, even for a tiny Peccei-Quinn breaking…
We show that axions interacting with abelian gauge fields obtain a potential from loops of magnetic monopoles. This is a consequence of the Witten effect: the axion field causes the monopoles to acquire an electric charge and alters their…
The string theory predicts many light fields called moduli and axions, which cause a cosmological problem due to the overproduction of their coherent oscillation after inflation. One of the prominent solutions is an adiabatic suppression…
The presence of a dynamical scalar field in the early universe could significantly affect the `freeze-out' time of particle species. In particular, it was recently shown that an enhancement of the relic abundance of neutralinos can be…
Cosmological scaling solutions, which give rise to a scalar-field density proportional to a background fluid density during radiation and matter eras, are attractive to alleviate the energy scale problem of dark energy. In the presence of…
We propose a novel mechanism to suppress the isocurvature perturbations of the QCD axion. The point is that the QCD interactions become strong at an intermediate or high energy scale in the very early Universe, if the Higgs field has a…
With the help of the tachyonic trapping mechanism one can potentially solve a number of problems affecting quintessential inflation models. In this mechanism we introduce a trapping field with a spontaneous symmetry breaking potential. When…
A scalar potential coupled to other fields of large disparate masses will exhibit power suppression of the quantum loop corrections from these massive fields. Quintessence fields in the dark energy regime and inflaton fields during…
We study the effects of particle production on the evolution of the inflaton field in an axion monodromy model with the goal of discovering in which situations the resulting dynamics will be consistent with the {\it swampland constraints}.…
We investigate the level-crossing phenomenon in two-axion systems, where the mass eigenvalues intersect as the mass of one axion increases with the cooling of the universe. This phenomenon can significantly alter the abundance of axions in…
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…
Axion-like scalar fields can induce temporary deviations from the standard expansion history of the universe. The scalar field's contribution to the energy density of the universe grows while the field is held constant by Hubble friction,…
Recently, attempts have been made to understand the apparent near coincidence of the present dark energy and matter energy in terms of a dynamical attractor-like solution for the evolution of a scalar field. In these models the field…
Light scalar fields such as axions and string moduli can play an important role in early-universe cosmology. However, many factors can significantly impact their late-time cosmological abundances. For example, in cases where the potentials…
We build a model in which the relic abundance of axions is altered from the standard misalignment mechanism, either increased or decreased, due to the presence of a new light scalar that couples to the radial part of the Peccei-Quinn (PQ)…
In inflationary scenarios with more than one scalar field, inflation may proceed even if each of the individual fields has a potential too steep for that field to sustain inflation on its own. We show that scalar fields with exponential…