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Title: QCD axion window and low-scale inflation

Journal Article · · Physical Review. D.
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Tohoku Univ., Sendai, Miyagi (Japan); Univ. of Tokyo, Kashiwa, (Japan); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
  3. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

We show that the upper bound of the classical QCD axion window can be significantly relaxed for low-scale inflation. If the Gibbons-Hawking temperature during inflation is lower than the QCD scale, the initial QCD axion misalignment angle follows the Bunch-Davies distribution. The distribution is peaked at the strong CP conserving minimum if there is no other light degree of freedom contributing to the strong CP phase. As a result, the axion overproduction problem is significantly relaxed even for an axion decay constant larger than 1012 GeV . Furthermore, we provide concrete hilltop inflation models where the Hubble parameter during inflation is comparable to or much smaller than the QCD scale, with successful reheating taking place via perturbative decays or dissipation processes.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012567
OSTI ID:
1462288
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1501439
Journal Information:
Physical Review. D., Vol. 98, Issue 1; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 101 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cosmology of the invisible axion journal January 1983
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Cited By (22)

Lightish but clumpy: scalar dark matter from inflationary fluctuations journal October 2018
Enhanced photon coupling of ALP dark matter adiabatically converted from the QCD axion journal October 2018
Axion dark matter from Higgs inflation with an intermediate H * journal August 2019
Misalignment & Co.: (pseudo-)scalar and vector dark matter with curvature couplings journal February 2020
Standard model Higgs field and hidden sector cosmology journal October 2019
Trans-Planckian censorship, inflation, and dark matter journal March 2020
Unified origin of axion and monopole dark matter, and solution to the domain-wall problem journal August 2018
Paper-boat relaxion journal May 2019
Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO) text January 2019
Temperature Dependence of the Axion Mass in a Scenario Where the Restoration of Chiral Symmetry Drives the Restoration of the UA(1) Symmetry journal October 2019
Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO) journal June 2019
Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO) text January 2019
Unified Origin of Axion and Monopole Dark Matter, and Solution to the Domain-wall Problem text January 2018
Enhanced photon coupling of ALP dark matter adiabatically converted from the QCD axion text January 2018
A Dark Matter Hurricane: Measuring the S1 Stream with Dark Matter Detectors text January 2018
Design and Implementation of the ABRACADABRA-10 cm Axion Dark Matter Search text January 2019
Metastability in Quadratic Gravity text January 2019
Dark matter from scalar field fluctuations text January 2019
Temperature Dependence of the Axion Mass in a Scenario Where the Restoration of Chiral Symmetry Drives the Restoration of the $U_A(1)$ Symmetry text January 2019
Trans-Planckian Censorship, Inflation and Dark Matter text January 2019
Stochastic inflation with an extremely large number of e-folds journal January 2020
Misalignment & Co.: (pseudo-)scalar and vector dark matter with curvature couplings journal February 2020

Figures / Tables (3)


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