Related papers: Can QCD Axions Survive the Cosmological Constant P…
We investigate cosmological constraints on the original relaxion scenario proposed by Graham, Kaplan and Rajendran. We first discuss the appropriate sign choice of the terms in the scalar potential, when the QCD axion is the relaxion with a…
Considerable theoretical efforts have gone into expanding the reach of the QCD axion beyond its canonical mass--decay-constant relation. The $Z_\mathcal{N}$ QCD axion model reduces the QCD axion mass naturally, by invoking a discrete…
We examine in the context of supersymmetric models whether the usual cosmological upper bound on the axion decay constant can be relaxed by assuming a period of stronger QCD in the early universe. By evaluating the axion potential in the…
A QCD axion with a time-dependent decay constant has been known to be able to accommodate high-scale inflation without producing topological defects or too large isocurvature perturbations on CMB scales. We point out that a dynamical decay…
Recently, a mechanism for relaxing a large cosmological constant (CC) has been proposed [arxiv:0902.2215], which permits solutions with low Hubble rates at late times without fine-tuning. The setup is implemented in the LXCDM framework, and…
The stability of cosmological solutions in the recently suggested specific mechanism of dynamical compensation of vacuum energy is studied. It is found that the solutions in the original version lead to cosmological singularity which could…
We present an unconventional approach for addressing the old cosmological constant (CC) problem in a class of F(R,G) models of modified gravity. For a CC of arbitrary size and sign the corresponding cosmological evolution follows an…
I discuss how anomalies affect classical symmetries and how, in turn, the non-trivial nature of the gauge theory vacuum makes these quantum corrections troublesome. Although no solution seems in sight for the cosmological constant problem,…
Recently Graham, Kaplan and Rajendran [1] proposed cosmological relaxation as a mechanism for generating a hierarchically small Higgs vacuum expectation value. Inspired by this we collect some thoughts on steps towards a solution to the…
It is known for some time that the cosmological bound on the invisible axion scale can be avoided by an early phase of strong QCD. While most approaches rely on theories where the strong coupling constant is determined through the…
We study the cosmological evolution of the QCD axion coupled to hidden photons. For a moderately strong coupling, the motion of the axion field leads to an explosive production of hidden photons by tachyonic instability. We use lattice…
A mechanism for suppressing the cosmological constant is developed, based on an analogy with a superconducting phaseshift in which free fermions coupled perturbatively to a weak gravitational field are in an unstable false vacuum state. The…
We show that the strong CP problem can, in principle, be solved dynamically by adding extra-dimensions with compact topology. To this aim we consider a toy model for QCD, which contains a vacuum angle and a strong CP like problem. We…
The hypothesis is proposed that under the approximation that the quantum equations of motion reduce to the classical ones, the quantum vacuum also reduces to the classical vacuum--the empty space. The vacuum energy of QED is studied under…
We consider a dynamical approach to the cosmological constant. There is a scalar field with a potential whose minimum occurs at a generic, but negative, value for the vacuum energy, and it has a non-standard kinetic term whose coefficient…
We explore a toy model mechanism of geometric cancellation, alleviating the (classical) cosmological constant problem. To do so, we assume at primordial times that vacuum energy fuels an inflationary quadratic hilltop potential nonminimally…
Axions are hypothetical pseudoscalar particles introduced initially as a solution to the Strong CP problem in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), and they also arise naturally in a broad class of low-energy compactifications of string theory.…
The relaxation mechanism, which solves the electroweak hierarchy problem without relying on TeV scale new physics, crucially depends on how a Higgs-dependent back-reaction potential is generated. In this paper, we suggest a new scenario in…
We study the problem of relaxing a large cosmological constant in the astrophysical domain through a dynamical mechanism based on a modified action of gravity previously considered by us at the cosmological level. We solve the model in the…
Vacuum energy changes during cosmological phase transitions and becomes relatively important at epochs just before phase transitions. For a viable cosmology the vacuum energy just after a phase transition must be set by the critical…