Related papers: Heavy fields and the axion quality problem
We explore a new framework that furnishes a mechanism to simultaneously address the electroweak naturalness problem and the axion high quality problem. The framework is based on a doubly composite dynamics where the second confinement takes…
We study the minimal requirements to obtain axion strings for axions with exponentially good quality. These ingredients appear in theories where an axion coming from a higher-form gauge field mixes with the phase of a complex scalar field…
We present a simple supersymmetric axion model that can naturally explain the origin of the Higgs mu and Bmu terms in gauge mediation while solving the strong CP problem. To stabilize the Peccei-Quinn scale, we consider mixing between the…
We consider a string inspired non-supersymmetric extension of the standard model with gauged anomalous U(1) flavor symmetries. Consistency requires the Green-Schwarz mechanism to cancel mixed anomalies. The additional required scalars…
We point out that the cosmological moduli problem is not necessarily resolved even if the modulus mass is heavier than O(10)TeV, contrary to the common wisdom. The point is that, in many scenarios where the lightest moduli fields are…
The QCD axion solving the strong CP problem may originate from antisymmetric tensor gauge fields in compactified string theory, with a decay constant around the GUT scale. Such possibility appears to be ruled out now by the detection of…
Axions are light pseudoscalar bosons postulated with many motivations in particle physics and cosmology, including the strong CP problem and the dark matter in our Universe. In this lecture notes, we discuss a variety of known ultraviolet…
Axions are hypothetical pseudoscalar particles introduced initially as a solution to the Strong CP problem in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and they also arise naturally in a broad class of low-energy compactifications of string theory.…
There exists some tension on large scales between the Planck data and the LCDM concordance model of the Universe, which has been amplified by the recently claimed discovery of non-zero tensor to scalar ratio $r$. At the same time, the…
There exists a widely spread notion that gravitational effects can strongly violate global symmetries. It may lead to many important consequences. We will argue, in particular, that nonperturbative gravitational effects in the axion theory…
Inspired by the possibility of high-scale supersymmetry breaking in the string landscape where the cosmological constant problem and the gauge hierarchy problem can be solved while the strong CP problem is still a challenge for naturalness,…
In this work, we critically reanalyze the explicit breaking of the Peccei-Quinn global symmetry -- and the corresponding corrections to the QCD axion potential -- induced by gravity. Specifically, we examine the role of gravitational…
We present a supersymmetric version of a two-field relaxion model that naturalizes tuned versions of supersymmetry. This arises from a relaxion mechanism that does not depend on QCD dynamics and where the relaxion potential barrier height…
The Axion Weak Gravity Conjecture provides one of the most effective quantum gravity tools for constraining particle physics and cosmology, but it has long been thought of as a slightly fuzzy statement: given an axion with decay constant…
We consider the class of effective supergravity theories from the weakly coupled heterotic string in which local supersymmetry is broken by gaugino condensation in a hidden sector, with dilaton stabilization achieved through corrections to…
We explore the notion of approximate global symmetries in quantum field theory and quantum gravity. We show that a variety of conjectures about quantum gravity, including the weak gravity conjecture, the distance conjecture, and the…
We study the effects of possible flavor-violating operators in theories with the TeV scale quantum gravity, in which the ordinary matter is localized on a 3-brane embedded in the space with $N$ extra dimensions, whereas gravity propagates…
We study QCD axion or cosmological axion-like particles (ALPs) in a model inspired by the recent interest in 4-dimensional clockwork models, with the global symmetry being accidentally enforced by a gauge abelian quiver with scalar…
We discuss a possibility that a superconformal dynamics induces the emergence of a global $U(1)_{\rm PQ}$ symmetry to solve the strong CP problem through the axion. Fields spontaneously breaking the $U(1)_{\rm PQ}$ symmetry couple to new…
We explore a dynamical mechanism to realize the emergence of a global $U(1)_{\rm PQ}$ symmetry and its spontaneous breaking at an intermediate scale for an axion solution to the strong CP problem. Such a dynamics is provided by a new…