Related papers: 0.5 eV QCD Axion Cosmology
In the standard cosmological model, the Universe consists mainly of two invisible substances: vacuum energy with constant mass-density rho_v=\Lambda/(8pi G) (where Lambda is a `cosmological constant' originally proposed by Einstein and G is…
There is increasing evidence suggesting a discrepancy between the cosmic dipole observed in the number count of distant galaxies and the one derived from the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this study, we investigate the possibility…
The hypothesis of an `invisible' axion was made by Misha Shifman and others, approximately thirty years ago. It has turned out to be an unusually fruitful idea, crossing boundaries between particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. An…
Theories with several hundred axion fields have enormous numbers of distinct meta-stable minima. A small fraction of these local minima have vacuum energy compatible with current measurements of dark energy. The potential also contains…
We demonstrate that the observed cosmological excess of matter over antimatter may originate from a heavy QCD axion that solves the strong CP problem but has a mass much larger than that given by the Standard Model QCD strong dynamics. We…
Cosmology and astroparticle physics give strongest possible evidence for the incompleteness of the Standard Model of particle physics. Leaving aside misterious dark energy, which may or may not be just the cosmological constant, two…
Atomic dark matter is a simple but highly theoretically motivated possibility for an interacting dark sector that could constitute some or all of dark matter. We perform a comprehensive study of precision cosmological observables on minimal…
The QCD axion stands as one of the most promising candidates for resolving the strong CP problem. However, the value of the axion's decay constant $f_a$ and, by extension, its mass $m_a$, remain uncertain within the framework of effective…
We are at a specific period of modern cosmology, during which the large increase of the amount of data leads to the idea that the determination of cosmological parameters has been achieved with a rather good precision. There is a large…
A huge amount of good quality astrophysical data converges towards the picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing the today observed phase of accelerated expansion. This new observational trend is commonly addressed as Precision…
Here we discuss what are perhaps the two most popular variants of CDM that might agree with the data: \lcdm\ and CHDM. While the predictions of COBE-normalized \lcdm\ and CHDM both agree well with the available data on scales of $\sim 10$…
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…
We identify 31 dimensionless physical constants required by particle physics and cosmology, and emphasize that both microphysical constraints and selection effects might help elucidate their origin. Axion cosmology provides an instructive…
The small-scale power spectrum of the cosmological matter distribution together with other cosmological data provides a sensitive measure of the hot dark matter fraction, leading to restrictive neutrino mass limits. We extend this argument…
One of the principal discoveries in modern cosmology is that standard model particles (including baryons, leptons and photons) together comprise only 5% of the mass-energy budget of the Universe. The remaining 95% consists of dark energy…
A hypothesis of curvature pressure is used to derive a static and stable cosmology with a tired-light redshift. The idea is that the high energy particles in the inter-galactic medium do not travel along geodesics because of the strong…
We present a new mechanism to deplete the energy density of the QCD axion, making decay constants as high as $f_a \simeq 10^{17}\,\rm{GeV}$ viable for generic initial conditions. In our setup, the axion couples to a massless dark photon…
We critically reexamine two possible Dark Matter candidate within the Standard Model. First, we consider the $uuddss$ exa-quark. Its QCD binding energy could be large enough to make it (quasi) stable. We show that the cosmological Dark…
Recently the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Collaboration presented evidence that the equation of state $w$ of the dark energy is varying, or $w \simeq -0.948$ if it is constant. In either case, the dark energy cannot be due to a cosmological…
Dark photon is a massive vector field which interacts only with the physical photon through the kinetic mixing. This coupling is assumed to be weak so that the dark photon becomes almost unobservable in processes with elementary particles,…