English
Related papers

Related papers: Glimmers from the Axiverse

200 papers

We study axion strings of hyperlight axions coupled to photons. Hyperlight axions -- axions lighter than Hubble at recombination -- are a generic prediction of the string axiverse. These axions strings produce a distinct quantized…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2020-08-26 Prateek Agrawal , Anson Hook , Junwu Huang

We study the coupling of axions to gauge bosons in heterotic string theory. The axion-gauge boson couplings in the low energy 4d theory are derived by matching mixed anomalies between higher-form global symmetries and the zero-form gauge…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2024-10-08 Prateek Agrawal , Michael Nee , Mario Reig

We demonstrate that asymmetric reheating arises in a large ensemble of string compactifications with many axions and gauged dark sectors. This phenomenon may help avoid numerous cosmological problems that may arise if the sectors were…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2019-04-24 James Halverson , Cody Long , Brent Nelson , Gustavo Salinas

The discovery of an axion-like particle above the QCD line would rule out Grand Unified Theories, including the perturbative heterotic string with the Standard Model embedded in a single $E_8$ factor or $SO(32)$. In this work we study a…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-11-19 Mario Reig , Timo Weigand

In this paper we initiate a broad study of some central properties of the string axiverse arising from Calabi-Yau compactifications of the perturbative heterotic $E_8\times E_8$ theory. Along this road toward a heterotic axiverse, we…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-09-05 Jacob M. Leedom , Margherita Putti , Alexander Westphal

We review how axion-like particles (ALPs) naturally emerge in the low-energy effective field theory of string compactifications. We focus on the study of their mass spectrum and couplings, stressing that they depend on the mechanism used to…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2013-09-27 Michele Cicoli

In view of the ongoing galactic (or cosmic) axion detection experiments, we compare the axion-photon-photon coupling $c_{a\gamma\gamma}$'s for various invisible (or very light) axion models.

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2008-11-26 Jihn E. Kim

We compute the couplings of Ramond-Ramond four-form axions in three ensembles of F-theory compactifications, with up to 181,200 axions. We work in the stretched K\"ahler cone, where $\alpha'$ corrections are plausibly controlled, and we use…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-11-26 Sebastian Vander Ploeg Fallon , James Halverson , Liam McAllister , Yunhao Zhu

We consider the dimming of photons from high redshift type 1a supernovae by mixing with a pseudoscalar axion field in the intergalactic medium. We model the electron density using a lognormal probability distribution and assume frozen in…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 Mattias Christensson , Malcolm Fairbairn

An interesting result in particle astrophysics is the recent detection of an unexplained 3.5 keV line from galaxy clusters. A promising model, which can explain the morphology of the signal and its non-observation in dwarf spheroidal…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2017-11-22 Michele Cicoli , Victor A. Diaz , Veronica Guidetti , Markus Rummel

The QCD axion's coupling to photons is often assumed to lie in a narrow band as a function of the axion mass. We demonstrate that several simple mechanisms, in addition to the photophilic clockwork axion already in the literature, can…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2018-02-16 Prateek Agrawal , JiJi Fan , Matthew Reece , Lian-Tao Wang

The possible couplings of an axion to gauge fields depend on the global structure of the gauge group. If the Standard Model gauge group is minimal, or equivalently if fractionally charged color-singlet particles are forbidden, then the QCD…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2023-09-11 Matthew Reece

We obtain constraints from black hole superradiance in an ensemble of compactifications of type IIB string theory. The constraints require knowing only the axion masses and self-interactions, and are insensitive to the cosmological model.…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2021-04-27 Viraf M. Mehta , Mehmet Demirtas , Cody Long , David J. E. Marsh , Liam McAllister , Matthew J. Stott

The origin of `invisible' axion in four dimensional effective beyond-standard models from string compactification is discussed and its refined passover through the QCD phase transition is presented toward a reliable estimate of the current…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2019-02-08 Jihn E. Kim , Se-Jin Kim

A generic prediction of string theory is the existence of many axion fields. It has recently been argued that many of these fields should be light and, like the well known QCD axion, lead to observable cosmological consequences. In this…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2013-02-19 David J. E. Marsh , Edward Macaulay , Maxime Trebitsch , Pedro G. Ferreira

A generic aspect of low-energy effective field theories (EFTs) coming from string compactifications is the appearance of moduli fields. Among these moduli, the axion and dilaton are present as (pseudo-) Goldstone bosons from the spontaneous…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2026-03-25 Mario Ramos-Hamud

Mixing of axion fields is widely used to generate EFTs with phenomenologically advantageous features, such as hierarchies between axion couplings to different gauge fields and/or large effective field ranges. While these features are…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2020-05-15 Katherine Fraser , Matthew Reece

String theory has been claimed to give rise to natural fuzzy dark matter candidates in the form of ultralight axions. In this paper we revisit this claim by a detailed study of how moduli stabilisation affects the masses and decay constants…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2022-06-01 Michele Cicoli , Veronica Guidetti , Nicole Righi , Alexander Westphal

We investigate the possibility of enhancement of effective axion decay constant in well controlled constructions in string theory. To this end, we study the dynamics of axions arising in the compactifications of type IIA string theory on…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2019-09-11 Gaurav Goswami

Inflationary models driven by a large number of axion fields are discussed in the context of type IIB compactifications with N=1 supersymmetry. The inflatons arise as the scalar modes of the R-R two-forms evaluated on vanishing two-cycles…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2008-06-13 Thomas W. Grimm