Related papers: Dark Radiation Constraints on Heavy QCD Axions
The QCD axion, originally proposed to solve the strong CP problem in QCD, is a prominent candidate for dark matter (DM). In the presence of strong magnetic fields, such as those around neutron stars, axions can theoretically convert into…
Annihilation of dark matter can result in the production of stable Standard Model particles including electrons and positrons that, in the presence of magnetic fields, lose energy via synchrotron radiation, observable as radio emission.…
Light scalars (as the axion) with mass m ~ 10^{-22} eV forming a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) exhibit a Jeans length in the kpc scale and were therefore proposed as dark matter (DM) candidates. Our treatment here is generic, independent…
If moduli, or other long-lived heavy states, decay in the early universe in part into light and feebly interacting particles (such as axions), these decay products could account for the additional energy density in radiation that is…
We obtain very stringent bounds on the possible cold dark matter, baryon and neutrino isocurvature contributions to the primordial fluctuations in the Universe, using recent cosmic microwave background and large scale structure data. In…
Nearly all astrophysical and cosmological data point convincingly to a large component of cold dark matter in the Universe. The axion particle, first theorized as a solution to the strong charge-parity problem of quantum chromodynamics, has…
The primordial heavy or superheavy dark matter that could be created during the reheating or preheating stage of the Universe can undergo QCD cascade decay process to produce leptons or $\gamma$ as end products. Although these could be rare…
The QCD axion is a leading dark matter candidate that emerges as part of the solution to the strong CP problem in the Standard Model. The coupling of the axion to photons is the most common experimental probe, but much parameter space…
If the cosmological dark matter (DM) couples to Standard Model (SM) fields, it can decay promptly to SM states in a highly energetic hard process, which subsequently showers and hadronizes to give stable particles including $e^\pm$,…
We study the QCD--DM scenario by analyzing the imprint of energy injection from decaying dark-sector particles on the spectral distortions (SDs) of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We adopt a unified framework capable of describing…
Mass bounds on dark matter (DM) candidates are obtained for particles decoupling in or out of equilibrium with {\bf arbitrary} isotropic and homogeneous distribution functions. A coarse grained Liouville invariant primordial phase space…
Heavy QCD axions are well-motivated extensions of the QCD axion that address the quality problem while still solving the strong CP problem. Owing to the gluon coupling, critical for solving the strong CP problem, these axions can be…
Primordial decays of string theory moduli at z \sim 10^{12} naturally generate a dark radiation Cosmic Axion Background (CAB) with 0.1 - 1 keV energies. This CAB can be detected through axion-photon conversion in astrophysical magnetic…
We study the production of sterile neutrinos in the early universe from $\pi \rightarrow l \nu_s$ shortly after the QCD phase transition in the absence of a lepton asymmetry while including finite temperature corrections to the $\pi$ mass…
We forecast constraints on dark matter (DM) scattering with baryons in the early Universe with upcoming and future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments, for DM particle masses down to 15 keV. In terms of the upper limit on the…
Cosmological moduli generically come to dominate the energy density of the early universe, and thereby trigger an early matter dominated era. Such non-standard cosmological histories are expected to have profound effects on the evolution…
Recently, indications for an emission line at 3.55 keV have been found in the combined spectra of a large number of galaxy clusters and also in Andromeda. This line could not be identified with any known spectral line. It is tempting to…
We consider reheating driven by volume modulus decays in the LARGE Volume Scenario. Such reheating always generates non-zero dark radiation through the decays to the axion partner, while the only competitive visible sector decays are Higgs…
A major fraction of the mass content of the universe is composed of dark matter (DM), i.e. particles not interacting significantly with electromagnetic radiation, with ordinary matter or self-interacting (cold dark matter). The axion is…
We present a proposal to search for QCD axions with mass in the 200 $\mu$eV range, assuming that they make a dominant component of dark matter. Due to the axion-electron spin coupling, their effect is equivalent to the application of an…