Related papers: A Heavy QCD Axion and the Mirror World
The strong CP-violating parameter is small today as indicated by constraints on the neutron electric dipole moment. In the early universe, the QCD axion has not yet relaxed to its QCD-cancelling minimum and it is natural to wonder whether…
In this work, we investigate the dark sector of a supersymmetric axion model, consisting of the late-decaying gravitino/axino dark matter and axion dark radiation. In the early universe, the decay of the scalar superpartner of the axion…
The axion is a highly motivated elementary particle which could address two fundamental questions in physics - the strong CP problem and the dark matter mystery. Experimental searches for this hypothetical particle have started to reach…
Axion dark matter coupled via QCD induces a non-zero differential acceleration between test masses of different composition. Tests of the equivalence principle, like the recent MICROSCOPE space mission, are sensitive to such a signal. We…
One of the still viable candidates for the dark matter is the so-called mirror matter. Its cosmological and astrophysical implications were widely studied in many aspects, pointing out the importance to go further with research and refine…
The subjects of this thesis are the invisible axion and the more general family of axion-like particles. The invisible axion is a hypothetical elementary particle and a cold dark matter candidate. I present an improved computation of the…
We argue that the QCD axion can arise from many aligned axions with decay constants much smaller than the conventional axion window. If the typical decay constant is of {\cal O}{(100)} GeV to 1 TeV, one or more of the axions or saxions may…
The current cosmological constraints on a dark matter axion are reviewed. We describe the basic mechanisms by which axions are created in the early universe, both in the standard thermal scenario in which axion strings form and in…
We consider the production of axion dark matter through the misalignment mechanism in the context of a nonstandard cosmological history involving early matter domination by a scalar field with a time-dependent decay rate. In cases where the…
The axion is a light pseudoscalar particle postulated to solve issues with the Standard Model, including the strong CP problem and the origin of dark matter. In recent years, there has been remarkable progress in the physics of axions in…
The axion is a hypothetical elementary particle postulated by the Peccei-Quinn theory to resolve the strong CP problem in QCD. If axions exist and have low mass, they are a candidate for dark matter as well. So far our knowledge of the…
By coupling to both the Higgs and electroweak gauge sectors, an axion can generate the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe via electroweak baryogenesis when the axion decay constant lies within the range of approximately $10^5$ and…
We investigate the possibility that the Peccei-Quinn phase transition occurs at a temperature far below the symmetry breaking scale. Low phase transition temperatures are typical in supersymmetric theories, where symmetry breaking fields…
The QCD axion or axion-like particles are candidates of dark matter of the universe. On the other hand, axion-like excitations exist in certain condensed matter systems, which implies that there can be interactions of dark matter particles…
The Strong CP Problem can be resolved by introducing an additional global symmetry known as Peccei-Quinn symmetry. Once PQ symmetry is broken the associated particle, the QCD axion, is a plausible dark matter candidate. Calculating the…
Generating axion dark matter through the kinetic misalignment mechanism implies the generation of large asymmetries for Standard Model fermions in the early universe. Even if these asymmetries are washed out at later times, they can trigger…
We argue that the striking similarity between the cosmic abundances of baryons and dark matter, despite their very different astrophysical behavior, strongly motivates the scenario in which dark matter resides within a rich dark sector…
We propose two novel solutions to the domain wall problem of the QCD axion by introducing a massless or light axion that also couples to gluons. The first solution applies when the new axion forms strings after inflation. Due to its mixing…
The QCD axion needs not be an exact pseudoscalar for solving the strong CP problem. Its imperfectness can play a profound role cosmologically. We propose effective operators, where the Peccei-Quinn field linearly couples to Standard Model…
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…