Related papers: Thermal QCD Axions across Thresholds
Axions and dark photons are common in many extensions of the Standard Model. The dark axion portal -- an axion coupling to the dark photon and photon -- can significantly modify their phenomenology. We study the cosmological constraints on…
We study weakly first order cosmological phase transitions in finite temperature field theories. Focusing on the standard electroweak theory and its minimal supersymmetric extension, we identify the regimes of Higgs masses for which the…
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…
In nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultra-relativistic energies matter is formed with initial energy density significantly exceeding the critical energy density for the transition from hadronic to partonic matter. We will review the…
I present an overview of some of the recent advances in our understanding of the distribution and evolution of the ordinary, baryonic matter in the universe. Two observations that strongly suggest that most of the baryons seen at high…
The finite temperature QCD transition for physical quark masses is a crossover. For smaller quark masses a first-order phase transition is expected. Using Symanzik improved gauge and stout improved fermion action for 2+1 flavour staggered…
In this Snowmass White Paper, we discuss physics opportunities involving heavy quarkonia at the intensity and energy frontiers of high energy physics. We focus primarily on two specific aspects of quarkonium physics for which significant…
The dynamics of {\it light} fermions propagating in a spatial direction at high temperatures can be described effectively by a two--dimensional Schr\"odinger equation with {\it heavy} effective mass $m_{\rm eff} = \pi T$. Starting from QED,…
The instanton/sphaleron processes involve gauge fields with changing topology through a nonzero variation of the Chern-Simons number $\delta N_{CS}=\pm 1$. In QCD this leads to the production of $2N_f \delta N_{CS}$ units of axial charge,…
Axion models with generation-dependent Peccei-Quinn charges can lead to flavor-changing neutral currents, thus motivating QCD axion searches at precision flavor experiments. We rigorously derive limits on the most general effective…
We present cosmological bounds on the thermal axion mass in an extended cosmological scenario in which the primordial power spectrum of scalar perturbations differs from the usual power-law shape predicted by the simplest inflationary…
We discuss fermion mass generation in unified models where QCD and technicolor (or any two strongly interacting theories) have their Schwinger-Dyson equations coupled. In this case the technicolor (TC) and QCD self-energies are modified in…
The QCD axion may offer a unified origin for the baryon asymmetry and dark matter through axiogenesis. However, in the minimal QCD axion scenario, axiogenesis either underproduces baryons or overproduces dark matter, and the required…
We consider thermal QCD in the large N_C limit, mainly in 1+1 dimensions. The gauge coupling is only taken into account to minimal order, by projection onto colour singlets. An expression for the free energy, exact as N_C goes to infinity,…
We study the production of heavy quarkonium in association with an additional heavy pair. We argue that important contributions may come from phase space regions where three heavy fermions are separated by relative velocities much lower…
Near a quantum critical point (QCP) in a metal, strong Fermion-Fermion interactions mediated by soft collective bosons give rise to two competing phenomena: non-Fermi liquid behavior and superconductivity that deviates from conventional BCS…
We study the thermal confinement/deconfinement and non-thermal quantum phase transitions or rapid cross-overs in QCD and QCD-like theories in external magnetic fields. At large magnetic fields, while the contribution of gauge fluctuations…
Beyond the Standard Model physics is required to explain both dark matter and the baryon asymmetry of the universe, the latter possibly generated during a strong first-order electroweak phase transition. While many proposed models tackle…
Non-observation of any dark matter signature at various direct detection experiments over the last decade keeps indicating that immensely popular WIMP paradigm may not be the actual theory of particle dark matter. Non-thermal dark matter…
The phase diagram of QCD at finite temperature and density is discussed. Large numbers of quark colors, $N_{\rm c} >> 1$, is used to explain generic features of the phase diagram. For temperatures below $ T \le 160$~MeV at zero baryon…