Related papers: Constraining F-theory Model Building with QCD Axio…
Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of the strong interactions within the Standard Model of particle physics, which explains more than 99% of the mass of the visible Universe. However, there is evidence that a substantial portion of…
Scalar fields with masses protected by global shift symmetries, commonly referred to as axions, are abundantly used in effective field theories in cosmology and particle physics. However, global symmetries cannot be expected to be protected…
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…
Axions arise in many theoretical extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics, in particular the "string axiverse". If the axion masses, $m_a$, and (effective) decay constants, $f_a$, lie in specific ranges, then axions contribute…
We study a "heavy" QCD axion whose coupling to the standard model is dominated by $a G \widetilde{G}$ but with $m_a \gg m_\pi f_\pi / f_a$. This is well motivated as it can solve the strong CP problem while evading the axion quality…
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…
The dark dimension scenario, which is motivated from Swampland principles and predicts a single micron scale extra dimension, suggests a consistent framework for the dark sector of the universe. We consider the implications of this scenario…
We argue that there are both experimental and theoretical reasons to reconsider the construction of KSVZ-like axion models. From the experimental side, predictions for the axion-photon coupling are not consistent with the collection of…
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.…
We study the dynamics of axion-like fields in F-theory and suggest that they can serve as inflatons in models of natural inflation. The axions arise from harmonic three-forms on the F-theory compactification space and parameterize a complex…
In the context of string theory, axions appear to provide the most plausible solution of the strong CP problem. However, as has been known for a long time, in many string-based models, the axion coupling parameter F_a is several orders of…
We present a new mechanism to deplete the energy density of the QCD axion, making decay constants as high as $f_a \simeq 10^{17}\,\rm{GeV}$ viable for generic initial conditions. In our setup, the axion couples to a massless dark photon…
A particular class of variant axion models with two higgs doublets and a singlet is studied. In these models the axion couples either to the $u$-quark or $t$-quark or both, but not to $b$, $c$, $s$, or $d$. When the axion couples to only…
We investigate the conditions for a QCD axion to coexist with stabilised moduli in string compactifications. We show how the simplest approaches to moduli stabilisation give unacceptably large masses to the axions. We observe that solving…
There has been an attempt to revive the visible QCD axion at the 10 MeV scale assuming that it exclusively couples to the first-generation quarks and the electron. This variant of the QCD axion is claimed to remain phenomenologically…
We report on an interesting realization of the QCD axion, with mass in the range $\mathcal{O}(10)$ MeV. It has previously been shown that although this scenario is stringently constrained from multiple sources, the model remains viable for…
The naturalness problem of PQ symmetry motivates study of the heavy QCD axion, with masses $m_a >$ 1 MeV generated at scales above the QCD scale, and low values of the PQ symmetry breaking scale, $f_a$. We compute the abundance of such…
We explore a large class of F-theory compactifications to four dimensions. We find evidence that gauge groups that cannot be Higgsed without breaking supersymmetry, often accompanied by associated matter fields, are a ubiquitous feature in…
We present a QCD axion model where the couplings of the axion to nucleons, electrons, and muons are naturally suppressed because of the appropriate choice of the Peccei-Quinn charges of the Standard Model fermions. We reexamine…