Related papers: Multiple Axions Save High-Scale Inflation
In an axiverse with numerous axions, the cosmological moduli problem poses a significant challenge because the abundance of axions can easily exceed that of dark matter. The well-established stochastic axion scenario offers a simple…
It is shown that the post-inflationary quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion need not lead to a unique one-parameter prediction for the dark matter abundance whenever small explicit Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking becomes dynamically relevant…
We show that the upper bound of the classical QCD axion window can be significantly relaxed for low-scale inflation. If the Gibbons-Hawking temperature during inflation is lower than the QCD scale, the initial QCD axion misalignment angle…
We explore the possibility of obtaining inflation in weakly coupled heterotic string theory, where the model dependent axions are responsible for driving inflation. This model can be considered as a certain extrapolation of…
The QCD axion solves the strong CP problem and represents an attractive particle candidate for cold dark matter (CDM). However, quantum fluctuations of the axion field during inflation easily result in large CDM isocurvature perturbations…
If the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is already broken during inflation, the decay constant $F_a$ of the axion can be in a wide region from $10^{11}$ GeV to $10^{18}$ GeV for the axion being the dominant dark matter. In this case, however, the…
Motivated by the recently proposed Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture (TCC), we propose a gauged $B-L$ model of inflection-point inflation with axion dark matter. The Hubble scale during inflation ($H_{\rm inf}$) satisfies the TCC bound…
String and M-theory compactifications generically have compact moduli which can potentially act as the QCD axion. However, as demonstrated here, such a compact modulus can not play the role of a QCD axion and solve the strong CP problem if…
We propose a minimal extension of the Standard Model with the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) scalar field and explain the relic density of the QCD axion through the kinetic misalignment with a relatively small axion decay constant. To this purpose, we…
The Peccei-Quinn symmetry is an automatic symmetry of the 3-3-1 gauge models which, consequently are not plagued with the strong CP problem. Nevertheless, the axion that emerges from spontaneous breaking of Peccei-Quinn symmetry cannot be…
We present a scenario where an axion-like field drives inflation until a potential barrier, which keeps a waterfall field at the origin, disappears and a waterfall transition occurs. Such a barrier separates the scale of inflation from that…
General consistency requirements of Quantum Gravity demand the existence of one axion per Yang-Mills group. In this work, we consider theories with dark Yang-Mills sectors and investigate general phenomenological implications of these…
The domain wall problem of the Peccei-Quinn mechanism can be solved if the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is explicitly broken by a small amount. Domain walls decay into axions, which may account for dark matter of the universe. This scheme is…
We show that heavy axion domain walls induce domain walls of the QCD axion through a mixing between the heavy axion and the QCD axion, even when the pre-inflationary initial condition is assumed for the QCD axion. The induced domain walls…
Natural (axionic) inflation provides a well-motivated and predictive scheme for the description of the early universe. It leads to sizeable primordial tensor modes and thus a high mass scale of the inflationary potential. Naively this seems…
We present global fits of cosmologically stable axion-like particle and QCD axion models in the mass range 0.1 neV to 10 eV. We focus on the case where the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is broken before the end of inflation, such that the initial…
If the inflaton is a pseudo-scalar axion, the axion shift symmetry can protect the flatness of its potential from too large radiative corrections. This possibility, known as natural inflation, requires an axion scale which is greater than…
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 misalignment mechanism for axion production depends on the temperature-dependent axion mass. The latter has recently been determined within the interacting instanton liquid model (IILM), and provides for the first time a well-motivated…
We discuss inflation models within supersymmetry and supergravity frameworks with a landscape of chiral superfields and one $U(1)$ shift symmetry which is broken by non-perturbative symmetry breaking terms in the superpotential. We label…