Related papers: Relaxing Axions
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 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…
We construct a model of the quintessence axion based on a gauged chiral $U(1)$ symmetry and an additional flat fifth dimension. The required high qualities are guaranteed by the brane separation. The observed cosmological constant (i.e.,…
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…
This paper is concerned with string cosmology and the dynamics of multiple scalar fields in potentials that can become negative, and their features as (Early) Dark Energy models. Our point of departure is the "String Axiverse", a scenario…
Linear axion monodromy models modulated with higher powers of fields naturally realize the quantum-mechanical flux discharge mechanism for relaxing the cosmological constant toward zero. Working with multiple copies of superposed linear and…
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…
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…
One fundamental physics interpretation of Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) results is that the observed accelerated expansion of the Universe is driven not by the cosmological constant, but by a slowly rolling scalar field, a…
It has been pointed out in the literature that in the presence of an external magnetic field the axion mass receives an electromagnetic contribution. We show that if a magnetic field with energy density larger than ~10^{-8} times the energy…
We demonstrate that the observed cosmological excess of matter over antimatter may originate from a heavy QCD axion that solves the strong CP problem but has a mass much larger than that given by the Standard Model QCD strong dynamics. We…
In the conventional misalignment mechanism, the axion field has a constant initial field value in the early universe and later begins to oscillate. We present an alternative scenario where the axion field has a nonzero initial velocity,…
The present work deals with a dark energy model that has an oscillating scalar field potential along with a cosmological constant (CC). The oscillating part of the potential represents the contribution of a light axion field in the dark…
The current cosmological bound on the invisible axion scale may be avoided in the class of theories in which the gauge coupling constant is determined through the expectation value of some scalar field (e.g. moduli in supergravity and…
We present a theory with axion flux monodromies coupled to gravity, that reduces to the local vacuum energy sequester below the axion mass scales. If the axion potentials include a term generated by nonperturbative couplings to gauge…
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 review current cosmological constraints on the axion. We describe the basic mechanisms by which axions are created in the early universe, focussing on the standard thermal scenario where the dominant process is through axion radiation by…
We present a model that naturally tunes a large positive cosmological constant to a small cosmological constant. A slowly rolling scalar field decreases the cosmological constant to a small negative value, causing the universe to contract,…
It is suggested that the true ground state of the world has exactly vanishing vacuum energy and that the cosmological constant that seems to have been observed is due to our region of the universe being stuck in a false vacuum, whose energy…
We propose a mechanism called axiogenesis where the cosmological excess of baryons over antibaryons is generated from the rotation of the QCD axion. The Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry may be explicitly broken in the early universe, inducing the…