Related papers: A Heavy QCD Axion and the Mirror World
Although the standard {\Lambda}CDM model describes the cosmic microwave background radiation and the large scale structure of the Universe with great success, it has some tensions with observations in the effective number of neutrino…
It is difficult to construct a post-inflation QCD axion model that solves the axion quality problem (and hence the Strong CP problem) without introducing a cosmological disaster. In a post-inflation axion model, the axion field value is…
Axion dark matter inevitably generates electromagnetic radiation in quantum Hall effect experiments that use strong magnetic fields. Although these emissions are very weak, we have shown using a QCD axion model that they influence the…
The axion is a hypothetical elementary particle that could solve the long-standing strong CP problem in particle physics and the dark matter mystery in the cosmos. Due to the stimulation of the ambient photons, the axion dark matter decay…
We study the impact of sphaleron-induced thermal friction on the axion dark-matter abundance due to the interaction of an axion-like particle (ALP) with a dark non-abelian gauge sector in a secluded thermal bath. Thermal friction can either…
A direct coupling between the inflaton and Standard Model gluons can dynamically raise the QCD confinement scale during inflation, making the axion temporarily heavy and suppressing axion isocurvature perturbations. As inflation proceeds,…
Axions solve the Strong CP Problem and are a cold dark matter candidate. The combined constraints from accelerator searches, stellar evolution limits and cosmology suggest that the axion mass is in the range $3 \cdot 10^{-3} > m_a >…
We briefly review the concept of a parallel `mirror' world which has the same particle physics as the observable world and couples to the latter by gravity and perhaps other very weak forces. The nucleosynthesis bounds demand that the…
The Peccei-Quinn mechanism presents a neat solution to the strong CP problem. As a by-product, it provides an ideal dark matter candidate, "the axion", albeit with a tiny mass. Axions therefore can act as dark radiation if excited with…
Conventionally, the strong-$CP$ problem is assumed to be a naturalness puzzle, with the axion solution sometimes viewed as an ad hoc fix. Gravity is either ignored or taken as a threat for the global Peccei-Quinn symmetry. We explain that…
We propose theories of a complete mirror world with parity (P) solving the strong CP problem. P exchanges the entire Standard Model (SM) with its mirror copy. We derive bounds on the two new mass scales that arise: $v'$ where parity and…
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…
We provide a systematic framework for theories of multiple axions. We discover a novel type of "alignment" that renders even very complex theories analytically tractable. Theories with about 100 axions and random parameters have an…
There are several issues to do with dwarf galaxy predictions in the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology that have suscitated much recent debate about the possible modification of the nature of dark matter as providing a solution. We explore a…
We show that heavy axion domain walls induce domain walls of the QCD axion through a mixing between the heavy axion and the QCD axion, even when the pre-inflationary initial condition is assumed for the QCD axion. The induced domain walls…
The QCD axion was originally predicted as a dynamical solution to the strong CP problem. Axion like particles (ALPs) are also a generic prediction of many high energy physics models including string theory. Theoretical models for axions are…
Constraints on inflationary scenarios and isocurvature perturbations have excluded the simplest and most generic models of dark matter based on QCD axions. Considering non-minimal kinetic couplings of scalar fields to gravity substantially…
The observed values of the cosmological constant {\it and} the abundance of Dark Matter (DM) can be successfully understood, using certain measures, by imposing the anthropic requirement that density perturbations go non-linear and…
Recently, two of the present authors showed that even when the axion momentum is much smaller than its mass, the axion can still behave like radiation if its energy density greatly exceeds the maximum potential energy set by the cosine-type…
The axion is an intriguing dark matter candidate emerging from the Peccei-Quinn solution to the strong CP problem. Current experimental searches for axion dark matter focus on the axion mass range below 40 $\mu$eV. However, if the…