Related papers: More is Different: Multi-Axion Dynamics Changes To…
In a class of non-singular cosmologies derived from higher-order corrections to the low-energy bosonic string action, we derive evolution equations for the most general cosmological scalar, vector and tensor perturbations. In the large…
Exact string solutions are presented, where moduli fields are varying with time. They provide examples where a dynamical change of the topology of space is occurring. Some other solutions give cosmological examples where some dimensions are…
The topic of cosmic strings provides a bridge between the physics of the very small and the very large. They are predicted by some unified theories of particle interactions. If they exist, they may help to explain some of the largest-scale…
We study cosmological effects of explicit Peccei-Quinn breaking on the QCD axion dark matter. We find that the axion abundance decreases or increases significantly depending on the initial position, even for a tiny Peccei-Quinn breaking…
We propose a novel observational strategy for the detection of pseudoaxions, emerging as transient resonances tied explicitly to the evolution of internal geometry in string theory and brane-world cosmologies. Building upon our previous…
One of the simplest extensions of the Standard Model is the Higgs portal extension involving a dark Higgs. Dark sectors that include dark matter candidates, WIMPs, axions, and dark photons, can naturally have this type of interaction, where…
We study the possibility that the axion Peccei-Quinn symmetry is spontaneously broken after the beginning of inflation. This scenario interpolates between pre-inflationary and post-inflationary axion cosmology with significant…
Understanding the evolution and cosmological consequences of topological defect networks requires a combination of analytic modeling and numerical simulations. The canonical analytic model for defect network evolution is the…
Cold dark matter axions produced in the post-inflationary Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking scenario serve as clear targets for their experimental detection, since it is in principle possible to give a sharp prediction for their mass once we…
The Peccei-Quinn mechanism suffers from the problem of the isocurvature perturbations. The isocurvature perturbations are suppressed if the Peccei-Quinn breaking scale is large during inflation. The oscillation of the Peccei-Quinn breaking…
In this paper, we discuss the dynamics of two- scalar-field cosmological models. Unlike in the situation of exponential potential, we find that there are late-time attractors in which one scalar field dominates the energy density of…
The QCD axion is widely studied as a dark matter (DM) candidate and as a solution to the strong CP problem of the Standard Model. In conventional field-theoretic models, a much larger mass scale than the electroweak (EW) scale is typically…
We propose a new regime of minimal QCD axion dark matter that lies between the pre- and post-inflationary scenarios, such that the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry is restored only on sufficiently large spatial scales. This leads to a novel…
A common framework of particle physics consists of two sectors of particles, such as the Standard Model and a dark sector, with some interaction between them. In this work, we initiate the study of a qualitatively different setup in which…
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…
In our previous work, we found new types of the cosmic string solutions in the Abelian-Higgs model with an enhanced $U(1)$ global symmetry. We dubbed those solutions as the compensated/uncompensated strings. The compensated string is…
We argue that closed string tachyons drive two spacetime topology changing transitions -- loss of genus in a Riemann surface and separation of a Riemann surface into two components. The tachyons of interest are localized versions of…
There has been recent interest in new types of topological defects arising in models with compact extra dimensions. We discuss in this context the old statement that if only SU(N) gauge fields and adjoint matter live in the bulk, and the…
The potential role of cosmic topological defects has raised interest in the astrophysical community for many years now. In this set of notes, we give an introduction to the subject of cosmic topological defects and some of their possible…
A salient feature of topological phases are surface states and many of the widely studied physical properties are directly tied to their existence. Although less explored, a variety of topological phases can however similarly be…