Related papers: Axion Isocurvature Collider
The ultralight boson represents a promising dark matter candidate exhibiting unique wave-like behaviors. These properties could transfer to the dark mediator, such as the kinetic mixing dark photon, which can be a link between the dark and…
In this lecture we review several cosmological issues associated with the axion. Axion solves the strong CP problem and is a good candidate for the dark matter. Limits, which are imposed by the value of isocurvature fluctuations fraction in…
I review two different connections between particle theory and early-Universe cosmology: (1) Cosmic-microwave-background (CMB) tests of inflation and (2) particle dark matter. The inflationary predictions of a flat Universe and a nearly…
A natural possibility for dark matter is that it is composed of the stable pions of a QCD-like hidden sector. Existing literature largely assumes that pion self-interactions alone control the early universe cosmology. We point out that…
In this work, we propose a model of warm inflation driven by axion-like particles interacting with $U(1)$ gauge fields, with implications for the early universe's thermal evolution. By extending traditional warm inflation models, we…
Axio-dilaton models are among the simplest scalar-tensor theories that contain the two-derivative interactions that naturally compete at low energies with the two-derivative inter-actions of General Relativity. Such models are…
An ultra-light axion with CP violating interactions with a dark sector and CP preserving interactions with the visible sector can act as a novel portal between dark matter and the Standard Model. In such theories, dark matter sources an…
Inflationary cosmology provides a natural mechanism for the generation of primordial perturbations which seed the formation of observed cosmic structure and lead to specific signals of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background…
A consequence of QCD axion dark matter being born after inflation is the emergence of small-scale substructures known as miniclusters. Although miniclusters merge to form minihalos, this intrinsic granularity is expected to remain imprinted…
Massive particles leave imprints on primordial non-Gaussianity via couplings to the inflaton, even despite their exponential dilution during inflation: practically, the Universe acts as a Cosmological Collider. We present the first…
The BICEP2 experiment determined the Hubble parameter during inflation to be about $10^{14}$ GeV. Such high inflation scale is in tension with the QCD axion dark matter if the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry remains broken during and after…
Scalar fields in the minimal supersymmetric standard model may have large field values during inflation. Because of approximate global symmetry, it is plausible that the phase directions of them are nearly massless during inflation and…
QCD axions are a well-motivated candidate for cold dark matter. Cold axions are produced in the early universe by vacuum realignment, axion string decay and axion domain wall decay. We show that cold axions thermalize via their…
We consider the axion-mediated scattering processes between dark matter (DM) and nucleus. Substantial contributions are made via the CP-odd gluonic current which induces the spin-dependent process. Since the QCD axion is too feebly coupled…
Spectral distortions (SDs) of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provide a powerful tool for studying particle physics. Here we compute the distortion signals from decaying particles that convert directly into photons at different epochs…
Axion dark matter coupled via QCD induces a non-zero differential acceleration between test masses of different composition. Tests of the equivalence principle, like the recent MICROSCOPE space mission, are sensitive to such a signal. We…
Simple curvaton models can generate a mixture of of correlated primordial adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations. The baryon and cold dark matter isocurvature modes differ only by an observationally null mode in which the two…
Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies constrain isocurvature fluctuations between photons and non-relativistic particles to be sub-dominant to adiabatic fluctuations. Perturbations in the relative number densities…
In models where ultralight fields constitute dark matter, the misalignment mechanism leads to coherent, low-amplitude oscillations in fundamental constants. This effect arises from effective operators that couple dark matter to Standard…
The properties of axions that constitute 100% of cold dark matter (CDM) depend on the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ at the end of inflation. If $r=0.20^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$ as reported by the BICEP2 collaboration, then "half" of the CDM axion…