Related papers: Stacking the Deck: Gambling on a Light QCD Axion
We show that the initial misalignment angle of the QCD axion (or axion-like particles) can be set very close to $\pi$, if the QCD axion has a mixing with another heavy axion which induces the phase shift $\approx \pi$ after inflation. In…
In models where the Higgs is realized as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (pNGB) of some global symmetry breaking, there are often remaining pNGBs of some $U(1)$ groups (called `pseudo-axions'), which could lead to smoking gun signatures of…
By coupling axions strongly to a hidden sector, the energy density in coherent axions may be converted to radiative degrees of freedom, alleviating the ``axion energy crisis''. The strong coupling is achieved by mixing the axion and some…
In models with an extended Higgs sector there exists an alignment limit, in which the lightest CP-even Higgs boson mimics the Standard Model Higgs. The alignment limit is commonly associated with the decoupling limit, where all non-standard…
We study a class of DFSZ-like models for the QCD axion that can address observed anomalies in stellar cooling. Stringent constraints from SN1987A and neutron stars are avoided by suppressed couplings to nucleons, while axion couplings to…
In the framework where the strong coupling is dynamical, the QCD sector may confine at a much higher temperature than it would in the Standard Model, and the temperature-dependent mass of the QCD axion evolves in a non-trivial way. We find…
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 strong CP problem of QCD is at heart a problem of naturalness: why is the F\tilde{F} term highly suppressed in the QCD Lagrangian when it seems necessary to explain why there are three and not four light pions? The most elegant solution…
In the decoupling limit of a non-minimal Higgs sector, the lightest CP-even Higgs boson (h) is indistinguishable from the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson. In the two-Higgs-doublet sector of the MSSM, the approach to the decoupling limit…
We present a new mechanism to relax the initial misalignment angle of the QCD axion and raise the cosmological bound on the axion decay constant. The QCD axion receives a contribution from small UV instantons during inflation, which raises…
We show that the presence of a lightish scalar resonance, $\sigma$, that mixes with the composite Goldstone-Higgs boson can relax the typical bounds found in this class of models. This mechanism, inbred in models with a walking dynamics…
We explore whether the axion which solves the strong CP problem can naturally be much lighter than the canonical QCD axion. The $Z_\mathcal{N}$ symmetry proposed by Hook, with $\mathcal{N}$ mirror and degenerate worlds coexisting in Nature…
We introduce a class of unified supersymmetric axion theories with unified and PQ symmetries broken by the same set of fields at a scale $\sim 2\times 10^{16}$ GeV. A typical domain wall number of order 30 leads to an axion decay constant…
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…
We have found that in the MSSM, the possibility for the lightest CP-even Higgs boson to be lighter than $Z$ boson (as low as about 60 GeV) is, contrary to the usual belief, not yet excluded by LEP2 Higgs search nor any direct searches for…
We revisit the study of light interacting with QCD axion domain walls from the perspective of the non-linear axion coupling to photons, $g(a) F \tilde F$, which encodes the effects related to the breaking of the axion shift symmetry…
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…
If inflation occurs after the breaking of Peccei-Quinn symmetry then large values of the breaking scale $F$, which are forbidden in conventional axion cosmology, are permitted, provided that we inhabit a region of the Multiverse where the…
For the minimal QCD axion model it is generally believed that overproduction of dark matter constrains the axion mass to be above a certain threshold, or at least that the initial misalignment angle must be tuned if the mass is below that…
We outline some general features of possible extensions of the Standard Model that include anomalous U(1) gauge symmetries, a certain number of axions and their mixings with the CP-odd Higgs sector. As previously shown, after the mixing one…