Related papers: Exotic Axions
Dark matter axions form a rethermalizing Bose-Einstein condensate. This provides an opportunity to distinguish axions from other forms of dark matter on observational grounds. I show that if the dark matter is axions, tidal torque theory…
We study the cosmology of the dark sector consisting of (ultra) light scalars. Since the scalar mass is radiatively unstable, a special explanation is required to make the mass much smaller than the UV scale. There are two well-known…
The discovery of an axion-like particle above the QCD line would rule out Grand Unified Theories, including the perturbative heterotic string with the Standard Model embedded in a single $E_8$ factor or $SO(32)$. In this work we study a…
If there are a plethora of axions in nature, they may have a complicated potential and create an axion landscape. We study a possibility that one of the axions is so light that it is cosmologically stable, explaining the observed dark…
A QCD axion with a decay constant below $ 10 ^{ 11} ~{\rm GeV} $ is a strongly-motivated extension to the Standard Model, though its relic abundance from the misalignment mechanism or decay of cosmic defects is insufficient to explain the…
Axion as a coherently oscillating scalar field is known to behave as a cold dark matter in all cosmologically relevant scales. For conventional axion mass with 10^{-5} eV, the axion reveals a characteristic damping behavior in the evolution…
Axions are well-motivated dark matter candidates with simple cosmological production mechanisms. They were originally introduced to solve the strong CP problem, but also arise in a wide range of extensions to the Standard Model. This…
In this work we explore the effect of a non-Abelian dark sector gauge group that couples to the axion field. In particular, we analyze effects that arise if the dark sector gauge group mixes topologically with the Standard Model. This is…
We propose a class of axion models with generation dependent Peccei-Quinn charges for the known fermions that allow to suppress the axion couplings to nucleons and electrons. Astrophysical limits are thus relaxed, allowing for axion masses…
We investigate the string solutions and cosmological implications of the gauge ${\rm U(1)_Z}\,\times$ global ${\rm U(1)_{PQ}}$ model. With two hierarchical symmetry-breaking scales, the model exhibits three distinct string solutions: a…
When axionic strings carry a global charge, domain walls bounded by such strings may not be allowed to decay completely. This happens in particular in some models where a composite axion-like particle is the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson of…
We argue that demanding a consistent cosmological history, including the absence of domain walls and strongly interacting relics at the Peccei-Quinn scale, singles out two concrete realizations of hadronic QCD axions as viable dark matter…
The chiral quark condensate of QCD, which spontaneously breaks the anomalous axial symmetry, gives rise to axionic type global string-wall systems. If a Peccei-Quinn type axion exists in the theory, the axionic strings are in general…
Standard Model extensions often predict low-mass and very weakly interacting particles, such as the axion. A number of small-scale experiments at the intensity/precision frontier are actively searching for these elusive particles,…
We analyze the spectrum of axions radiated from collapse of domain walls, which have received less attention in the literature. The evolution of topological defects related to the axion models is investigated by performing field-theoretic…
Composite axion scenarios offer a robust field theoretic justification for the existence of a Peccei-Quinn symmetry of high quality. We present a new class of realizations that are naturally embedded in Grand-Unified Theories, retain…
Axions have emerged as compelling candidates for describing the dark sector of the Universe. In this work, we explore quintessence models inspired by axion-like potentials as a dynamical alternative to the cosmological constant. These…
The decay of a massive pseudoscalar, scalar and U(1) boson into an electron-positron pair in the presence of strong electromagnetic backgrounds is calculated. Of particular interest is the constant-crossed-field limit, relevant for…
Here we generally prove that the axion as a coherently oscillating scalar field acts as a cold dark matter in nearly all cosmologically relevant scales. The proof is made in the linear perturbation order. Compared with our previous proof…
We perform the lattice simulation to estimate the axion dark matter abundance radiated from the global cosmic strings in the post-inflationary scenario. The independent numerical confirmation on the recently observed logarithmic growth in…