We show how the properties of the QCD axion change in systems at finite baryonic density, such as neutron stars. At nuclear saturation densities, where corrections can be reliably computed, we find a mild reduction of the axion mass and up to an order of magnitude enhancement in the model-independent axion coupling to neutrons. At moderately higher densities, if realized, meson (kaon) condensation can trigger axion condensation. We also study the axion potential at asymptotically large densities, where the color-superconducting phase of QCD potentially leads to axion condensation, and the mass of the axion is generically several orders of magnitude smaller than in vacuum due to the suppressed instantons. Several phenomenological consequences of the axion being sourced by neutron stars are discussed, such as its contribution to their total mass, the presence of an axionic brane, or axion-photon conversion in the magnetosphere.
We investigate the phenomenology of QCD axions and axionlike particles in a scenario with two eras of inflation. In particular, we describe the possible solutions for the QCD axion field equation after the second inflation and reheating. We calculate the dilution numerically for QCD axions and give an analytic approximation for axionlike particles. While it has been realised before that such a scenario can dilute the axion energy density and open up the parameter space for the axion decay constant $f_A$, we find that even a small increase in the relative QCD axion energy density is possible.
The quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion may modify the cooling rates of neutron stars (NSs). The axions are produced within the NS cores from nucleon bremsstrahlung and, when the nucleons are in superfluid states, Cooper pair breaking and formation processes. We show that four of the nearby isolated Magnificent Seven NSs along with PSR J0659 are prime candidates for axion cooling studies because they are coeval, with ages of a few hundred thousand years known from kinematic considerations, and they have well-measured surface luminosities. We compare these data to dedicated NS cooling simulation…
Testing selectively enhanced QCD axions couplings as an explanation of the RX J1856.5-3754 hard X-ray excess
Birla Institute of Technology and Science - Pilani（比拉理工学院皮拉尼分校）；Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, K. K. Birla Goa Campus（比拉理工学院皮拉尼分校K.K.比尔拉果阿校区）
研究利用 QCD 轴子转换光子解释壮丽七颗中子星之一的硬 X 射线数据，采用核子 - 核子轫致辐射及库珀对破坏与形成过程，对比常用模型，发现微电子伏特尺度增强模型更吻合数据，可解释 2 - 8 千电子伏特硬 X 射线发射。
As a cold dark matter candidate, the QCD axion may form Bose-Einstein condensates, called axion stars, with masses around $10^{-11}\,M_{\odot}$. In this paper, we point out that a brand new astrophysical object, a Hydrogen Axion Star (HAS), may well be formed by ordinary baryonic matter becoming gravitationally bound to an axion star. We study the properties of the HAS and find that the hydrogen cloud has a high pressure and temperature in the center and is likely in the liquid metallic hydrogen state. Because of the high particle number densities for both the axion star and the hydrogen cloud…
The axion solution of the strong CP problem is reviewed together with the other strong CP solutions. We also point out the quintessential axion(quintaxion) whose potential can be extremely flat due to the tiny ratio of the hidden sector quark mass and the intermediate hidden sector scale. The quintaxion candidates are supposed to be the string theory axions, the model independent or the model dependent axions.
We study in detail MSW-like resonant conversions of QCD axions into hidden axions, including cases where the adiabaticity condition is only marginally satisfied, and where anharmonic effects are non-negligible. When the resonant conversion is efficient, the QCD axion abundance is suppressed by the hidden and QCD axion mass ratio. We find that, when the resonant conversion is incomplete due to a weak violation of the adiabaticity, the CDM isocurvature perturbations can be significantly suppressed, while non-Gaussianity of the isocurvature perturbations generically remain unsuppressed. The isocu…
A previously discussed clockwork mechanism within heterotic M-theory is applied to its axion landscape. We identify a unique candidate for a QCD-axion with a decay constant in the preferred "axion window" around $10^{11}\,$GeV. It is accompanied by at least one ultra-light axion that couples predominantly to hidden sector gauge groups.
The serious cosmological problems created by the axion-string/axion-domain-wall system in standard axion models are alleviated by positing the existence of a new confining force. The instantons of this force can generate an axion potential that erases the axion strings long before QCD effects become important, thus preventing QCD-generated axion walls from ever appearing. Axion walls generated by the new confining force would decay so early as not to contribute significantly to the energy in axion dark matter.
In a previous work, we analyzed collapsing axion stars using the low-energy instanton potential, showing that the total energy is always bounded and that collapsing axion stars do not form black holes. In this paper, we provide a proof that the conclusions are unchanged when using instead the more general chiral potential for QCD axions.
The axion is a hypothetical elementary particle postulated by the Peccei-Quinn theory to resolve the strong CP problem in QCD. If axions exist and have low mass, they are a candidate for dark matter as well. So far our knowledge of the properties of the QCD axion rests on semi-classical arguments and effective theory. In this work we perform, for the first time, a fully dynamical investigation of the Peccei-Quinn theory, focussing on the axion mass, by simulating the theory on the lattice. The results of the simulation are found to be in conflict with present axion phenomenology.
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 investigate a rotation of the heavy QCD axion in field space, which is transferred into a baryon asymmetry through weak and strong sphaleron processes. This provides a strong cosmological motivation for heavy QCD axions, which are of high experimental interest. The viable parameter space has an axion mass $m_a$ between 1~MeV and 10 GeV and a decay constant $f…
The physical origin of the strong CP problem in QCD, rooted in the structures of the vacuum of the standard model, is reviewed. The chiral solution to this problem, with its accompanying axion, is explained and various characteristics of axions are detailed. Although visible axion models are excluded experimentally, models with very light and very weakly coupled axions are still tenable. The astrophysical and cosmological implications of such axion models are discussed, along with ongoing experimental attempts to detect such, so called, invisible axions.
Assuming QCD exhibits an interacting fixed-point behaviour in the ultraviolet regime, I argue that the axion can be substantially heavier than in the conventional case of asymptotically free QCD due to the enhanced contribution of small size instantons to its mass.
We show that the required high quality of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry can be naturally explained in the aligned QCD axion models where the QCD axion arises from multiple axions with decay constants much smaller than the axion window, e.g., around the weak scale. Even in the presence of general Planck-suppressed Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking operators, the effective strong CP phase remains sufficiently small in contrast to the standard axion models without the alignment. The QCD axion potential has small or large modulations due to the symmetry breaking operators, which can significantly affect …
We point out that a QCD axion solving the strong CP problem can arise naturally from parity-odd gauge field C_M in 5-dimensional (5D) orbifold field theory. The required axion coupling to the QCD anomaly comes from the 5D Chern-Simons coupling, and all other unwanted U(1)_{PQ} breaking axion couplings can be avoided naturally by the 5D gauge symmetry of C_M and the 5D locality. If the fifth dimension is warped, the resulting axion scale is suppressed by small warp factor compared to the Planck scale, thereby the model can generate naturally an intermediate axion scale f_a=10^{10} - 10^{12}GeV.
String theoretic axion is a prime candidate for the QCD axion solving the strong CP problem. For a successful realization of the QCD axion in string theory, one needs to stabilize moduli including the scalar partner (saxion) of the QCD axion, while keeping the QCD axion unfixed until the low energy QCD instanton effects are turned on. We note that a simple generalization of KKLT moduli stabilization provides such set-up realizing the axion solution to the strong CP problem. Although some details of moduli stabilization are different from the original KKLT scenario, this set-up leads to the mir…
We argue that the QCD axion can arise from many aligned axions with decay constants much smaller than the conventional axion window. If the typical decay constant is of {\cal O}{(100)} GeV to 1 TeV, one or more of the axions or saxions may account for the recently found diphoton excess at \sim 750 GeV. Our scenario predicts many axions and saxions coupled to gluons with decay constants of order the weak scale, and therefore many collider signatures by heavy axions and saxions will show up at different energy scales. In particular, if the inferred broad decay width is due to multiple axions or …
In the framework where the strong coupling is dynamical, the QCD sector may confine at a much higher temperature than it would in the Standard Model, and the temperature-dependent mass of the QCD axion evolves in a non-trivial way. We find that, depending on the evolution of $Λ_{\mathrm{QCD}}$, the axion field may undergo multiple distinct phases of damping and oscillation leading generically to a suppression of its relic abundance. Such a suppression could therefore open up a wide range of parameter space, resurrecting in particular axion dark-matter models with a large Peccei-Quinn scale $f_…
Similarities between the gauge meditation of supersymmetry breaking and the QCD axion model suggest that they originate from the same dynamics. We present a class of models where supersymmetry and the Peccei-Quinn symmetry are simultaneously broken. The messengers that mediate the effects of these symmetry breakings to the Standard Model are identical. Since the axion resides in the supersymmetry breaking sector, the saxion and the axino are heavy. We show constraints on the axion decay constant and the gravitino mass.
We propose a novel mechanism to suppress the isocurvature perturbations of the QCD axion. The point is that the QCD interactions become strong at an intermediate or high energy scale in the very early Universe, if the Higgs field has a sufficiently large expectation value. The effective QCD scale can be even higher in the presence of extra colored particles. We show that the QCD axion then becomes so heavy during inflation that its isocurvature perturbations are significantly suppressed, thereby relaxing the constraint on the inflation scale.
String allowed discrete symmetry is the mother of acceptable effective global symmetries at low energy. With this philosophy, we discuss dark energy, QCD axion, and inflation, and speculate some implications of the recent BICEP2 data.
Heavy QCD axions are well-motivated extensions of the QCD axion that address the quality problem while still solving the strong CP problem. Owing to the gluon coupling, critical for solving the strong CP problem, these axions can be produced in significant numbers in beam dump and collider environments for axion decay constants as large as PeV, relevant for addressing the axion quality problem. In addition, if these axions have leptonic couplings, they can give rise to long-lived decay into lepton pairs, in particular, dominantly into muons above the dimuon threshold and below the GeV scale in…
A non-negligible fraction of the QCD axion dark matter may form gravitationally bound Bose Einstein condensates, which are commonly known as axion stars or axion clumps. Such astrophysical objects have been recently proposed as the cause for the single candidate event reported by Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) microlensing search in the Andromeda galaxy. Depending on the breaking scale of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry and the details of the dark matter scenario, QCD axion clumps may form via gravitational condensation during radiation domination, in the dense core of axion miniclusters, or within …
We discuss the idea that the model-independent (MI) axion of string theory is the source of quintessential dark energy. The scenario is completed with a composite QCD axion from hidden sector squark condensation that could serve as dark matter candidate. The mechanism relies on the fact that the hidden sector anomaly contribution to the composite axion is much smaller than the QCD anomaly term. This intuitively surprising scenario is based on the fact that below the hidden sector scale $Λ_h$ there are many light hidden sector quarks. Simply, by counting engineering dimensions the hidden sector…
The QCD axion is one of the most compelling solutions of the strong CP problem. There are major current efforts into searching for an ultralight, invisible axion, which is believed to be the only phenomenologically viable realization of the QCD axion. Visible axions with decay constants at or below the electroweak scale are believed to have been long excluded by laboratory searches. Considering the significance of the axion solution of the strong CP problem, we revisit experimental constraints on QCD axions in the O(10 MeV) mass window. In particular, we find a variant axion model that remains…
Detecting the QCD axion via the ferroaxionic force with piezoelectric materials
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics（Perimeter理论物理研究所）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina（北卡罗来纳大学物理与天文学系）；Center for Fundamental Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University（西北大学物理与天文学系基础物理中心）；Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara（加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校卡弗里理论物理研究所）；Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University（纽约大学物理系宇宙学与粒子物理中心）；Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute（Flatiron研究所计算天体物理学中心）
We present a mechanism wherein the QCD axion coupling to nucleons, photons, or electrons, can be enhanced selectively without increasing the axion mass. We focus in particular on the axion-nucleon couplings, that are generally considered to be largely model-independent, and we show how nucleophilic axion models can be constructed. We discuss the implications of a nucleophilic axion for astrophysics, cosmology and laboratory searches. We present a model with enhanced axion couplings to nucleons and photons that can provide an excellent fit to the anomalous emission of hard X-rays recently obser…
We present a model where the QCD axion is at the TeV scale and visible at a collider via its decays. Conformal dynamics and strong CP considerations account for the axion coupling strongly enough to the standard model to be produced as well as the coincidence between the weak scale and the axion mass. The model predicts additional pseudoscalar color octets whose properties are completely determined by the axion properties rendering the theory testable.
It is pointed out that there exist a few problems to be overcome toward an observable sub-eV QCD axion in superstring compactification. We give a general expression for the axion decay constant. For a large domain wall number $N_{DW}$, the axion decay constant can be substantially lowered from a generic value of a scalar singlet VEV. The Yukawa coupling structure in the recent $Z_{12-I}$ model is studied completely, including the needed nonrenormalizable terms toward realistic quark and lepton masses. In this model we find an approximate global symmetry and vacuum so that a QCD axion results b…
QCD axions are at the crossroads of QCD topology and Dark Matter searches. We present here the current status of topological studies on the lattice, and their implication on axion physics. We outline the specific challenges posed by lattice topology, the different proposals for handling them, the observable effects of topology on the QCD spectrum and its interrelation with chiral and axial symmetries. We review the transition to the Quark Gluon Plasma, the fate of topology at the transition, and the approach to the high temperature limit. We discuss the extrapolations needed to reach the regim…
Technically Natural Baryogenesis with the QCD Axion
University of California Santa Cruz（加州大学圣克鲁兹分校）；University of Washington（华盛顿大学）；International Centre for Theoretical Physics（国际理论物理中心）；Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Sezione di Trieste（意大利国家核物理研究所的里雅斯特分部）；University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）
Hidden axions may be coupled to the standard model particles through a kinetic or mass mixing with QCD axion. We study a scenario in which a hidden axion constitutes a part of or the whole of dark matter and decays into photons through the mixing, explaining the 3.5 keV X-ray line signal. Interestingly, the required long lifetime of the hidden axion dark matter can be realized for the QCD axion decay constant at an intermediate scale, if the mixing is sufficiently small. In such a two component dark matter scenario, the primordial density perturbations of the hidden axion can be highly non-Gau…
The QCD axion acquires the potential through the non-perturbative effect of the QCD matters around the QCD phase transition. During this period, the direct interaction between the axion and the QCD matters sets in. Focusing on the impact of this direct interaction, we propose two scenarios where the fluctuation of the axion can rapidly grow, potentially leading to the formation of axion miniclusters even if the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry was already broken during inflation. The first scenario assumes that the primordial curvature perturbation at the horizon scale during the QCD epoch was signi…
We report that the hypothesis that the upper bound on the axion decay constant can be moved up beyond $10^{12}$ GeV in models with a stronger QCD in the early universe is not realized. This proof is possible by studying the superpotential in the dual model and obtaining the form of the axion potential respecting the original global symmetries.
We find that the adiabatic fluctuations produced in the primordial plasma by cosmological inflation resonantly excite the axion field during the QCD phase transition by pumping axions from low momentum modes to modes with momentum up to of order $\sqrt{3} m$ where $m$ is the axion mass. We derive the momentum distribution of the excited axions. The fraction of cold axions that get excited is of order one if the axion mass is larger than a few $μ$eV. The effect occurs whether inflation happens before or after the Peccei-Quinn phase transition.
We propose a QCD axion model where the origin of PQ symmetry and suppression of axion isocurvature perturbations are explained by introducing an extra dimension. Each extra quark-antiquark pair lives on branes separately to suppress PQ breaking operators. The size of the extra dimension changes after inflation due to an interaction between inflaton and a bulk scalar field, which implies that the PQ symmetry can be drastically broken during inflation to suppress undesirable axion isocurvature fluctuations.
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 significantly extend the allowed range of couplings. Some mechanisms we present generalize the KNP alignment scenario, widely studied as a model of inflation, to the phenomenology of a QCD axion. In particular we present KSVZ-like realizations of two-axion KNP alignment and of the clockwork mechanism. Such a "confinement tower" realization of clockwork may prove …
