Related papers: A Universal Bound on QCD Axions from Supernovae
The QCD axial anomaly, by coupling the chiral condensate and BCS pairing fields of quarks in dense matter, leads to a new critical point in the QCD phase diagram \cite{HTYB,chiral2}, which at sufficiently low temperature should terminate…
Prior to the establishment of $QCD$ as the correct theory describing hadronic physics, it was realized that the essential ingredients of the hadronic world at low energies are chiral symmetry and its spontaneous breaking. Spontaneous…
We identify the QCD axion and right-handed (sterile) neutrinos as bound states of an $SU(5)$ chiral gauge theory with Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry arising as a global symmetry of the strong dynamics. The strong dynamics is assumed to…
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 analyse the extension of Chiral Perturbation Theory to describe a meson gas out of thermal equilibrium. For that purpose, we let the pion decay constant be a time-dependent function and work within the Schwinger-Keldysh contour…
Pion electro- and photoproduction off the nucleon close to threshold is studied in covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory at O($p^3$) in the extended-on-mass-shell scheme, with the explicit inclusion of the $\Delta(1232)$ resonance.…
The minimal $SO(5)/SO(4)$ linear $\sigma$ model is extended including an additional complex scalar field, singlet under the global $SO(5)$ and the Standard Model gauge symmetries. The presence of this scalar field creates the conditions to…
We use a variational procedure to study finite density QCD in an approximation in which the interaction between quarks is modelled by that induced by instantons. We find that uniform states with conventional chiral symmetry breaking have…
We find that a big gap between indicators for the breaking strengths of the global chiral SU(2) and U(1) axial symmetries in QCD of the Standard Model (SM) can be interpreted as a new fine-tuning problem. This may thus imply calling for a…
We introduce the Anarchic Axion, a class of axion models which solves the Strong CP problem within current nEDM constraints with a lighter than usual QCD axion, thus populating new parameter space that ongoing and future experiments target.…
In QCD with two massless quarks, the chiral phase transition is plausibly in the same universality class as the classical O(4) magnet. To test this hypothesis, critical exponents characterizing the behaviour of universal quantities near the…
The current cosmological bound on the invisible axion scale may be avoided in the class of theories in which the gauge coupling constant is determined through the expectation value of some scalar field (e.g. moduli in supergravity and…
We consider the low energy realization of QCD in terms of meson fields when an axial chemical potential is present; a situation that may be relevant in heavy ion collisions. We shall demonstrate that the presence of an axial charge…
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 explore a concrete realization of a Nelson-Barr model addressing the strong CP problem with suppressed unfavorable corrections. This model has a scalar field that spontaneously breaks discrete symmetry, and its phase component can…
We strengthen the cosmological bound on the axion mass, by solving the momentum-dependent Boltzmann equations for axion-pion scatterings and by using a phenomenological production rate derived from pion-pion scattering data, overcoming the…
We explore the possibility that supersymmetry breaking is mediated to the Standard Model sector through the interactions of a generalized axion multiplet that gains a F-term expectation value. Using an effective field theory framework we…
Small size QCD instantons may spoil the axion solution to the strong CP problem if QCD is not asymptotically free at high energy scales. We examine this issue in supersymmetric models using a manifestly supersymmetric scheme to compute the…
We attempt to identify a phenomenologically viable solution to the strong $CP$ problem in which the axion is composed entirely out of Standard Model fermion species. The axion consists predominantly of the $\eta'$ meson with a minuscule…
These lecture notes provide a self-contained, graduate-level introduction to the strong $CP$ problem and QCD axion physics from an effective field theory (EFT) viewpoint. We review the construction of the chiral EFT of QCD yielding a…