Related papers: REMOVING THE COSMOLOGICAL BOUND ON THE AXION SCALE
We study cosmological solutions of (pseudo)scalar theories with periodic potentials, in the presence of arbitrary cosmological fluids -- including a cosmological constant of either sign. Independently of the initial misalignment angle and…
The string axiverse predicts a unique connection between the high scales approachable only through theory and the low energies within reach of experimental verification: a multitude of light, feebly interacting axions. In order to capture…
The highly populated, low-energy excitations of a scalar field of mass $m_a\sim 10^{-22}\,\textrm{eV}$ can represent the full dark matter content of the universe and alleviate some tensions in the standard cosmological scenario on…
We describe a simple class of supersymmetric gauge theories that can act as supersymmetry-breaking sectors for gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking. The models have a local supersymmetry-breaking minimum along a direction in field space…
We show that stable local cosmic strings are a generic prediction of supersymmetric models where supersymmetry is broken at scales within a few orders of magnitude of the weak scale and is fed down to the observable sector by gauge…
We discuss predictions for cosmology which result from the scaling solution of functional flow equations for a quantum field theory of gravity. A scaling solution is necessary to render quantum gravity renormalizable. Our scaling solution…
Flat directions are a generic feature of the scalar potential in supersymmetric gauge field theories. They can arise, for example, from D-terms associated with an extra abelian gauge symmetry. Even when supersymmetry is broken softly, there…
Resolving the tension between quantum superpositions and the uniqueness of the classical world is a major open problem. One possibility, which is extensively explored both theoretically and experimentally, is that quantum linearity breaks…
The Cosmological Constant Problem is re-examined from an effective field theory perspective. While the connection between gravity and particle physics has not been experimentally probed in the quantum regime, it is severely constrained by…
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…
There appears to be no natural explanation for the cosmological constant's small size within the framework of local relativistic field theories. We argue that the recently-discussed framework for which the observable universe is identified…
Mechanisms that dynamically relax the vacuum energy offer a concrete way to approach the cosmological constant problem, but because relaxation is not confined to the vacuum energy alone it can have consequences for the rest of low-energy…
In supersymmetric theories, the Peccei-Quinn symmetry has a complex extension as a symmetry of the superpotential, so that the scalar potential always has an almost flat direction, the dilaton. We discuss how coherent oscillation of the…
The quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion may solve the strong CP problem and explain the dark matter (DM) abundance of our Universe. The axion was originally proposed to arise as the pseudo-Nambu Goldstone boson of global $\mathrm{U}(1)_{\rm…
It is difficult to construct a post-inflation QCD axion model that solves the axion quality problem (and hence the Strong CP problem) without introducing a cosmological disaster. In a post-inflation axion model, the axion field value is…
In rigid supersymmetry, generic models of dynamical supersymmetry breaking contain a light Goldstone boson, called the R axion. We show that supergravity effects explicitly break the R symmetry and give mass to the R axion. For visible and…
An artificial scale of observable cosmological constant is dynamically related to its natural bare value due to an installation of relevant coherent state for the inflationary field in a finite volume of early Universe, because of…
Incorporating the QCD axion and simultaneously satisfying current constraints on the dark matter density and isocurvature fluctuations requires non-minimal fine-tuning of inflationary parameters or the axion misalignment angle (or both) for…
The cosmological (upper) limit on the Peccei-Quinn constant, related to the primordial oscillations of the axion field, can be relaxed for a mirror axion model. The simple reason is that the mirror world is colder and so the behavior of the…
We study the cosmology of complex multi-axion theories. With O(100) fields and GUT scale energies these theories contain a vast number of vacua, inflationary trajectories and a natural dark matter candidate. We demonstrate that the vacua…