Opening up the QCD axion window
Abstract
We present a new mechanism to deplete the energy density of the QCD axion, making decay constants as high as fa ≃ 1017 GeV viable for generic initial conditions. In our setup, the axion couples to a massless dark photon with a coupling that is moderately stronger than the axion coupling to gluons. Dark photons are produced copiously through a tachyonic instability when the axion field starts oscillating, and an exponential suppression of the axion density can be achieved. For a large part of the parameter space this dark radiation component of the universe can be observable in upcoming CMB experiments. Such dynamical depletion of the axion density ameliorates the isocurvature bound on the scale of inflation. The depletion also amplifies the power spectrum at scales that enter the horizon before particle production begins, potentially leading to axion miniclusters.
- Authors:
-
- Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Physics
- Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Center for Theoretical Physics
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Stanford Univ., CA (United States); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1499139
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012012; SC0012567; SC0015476
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Journal of High Energy Physics (Online); Journal Volume: 2018; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 1029-8479
- Publisher:
- Springer Berlin
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
Citation Formats
Agrawal, Prateek, Marques-Tavares, Gustavo, and Xue, Wei. Opening up the QCD axion window. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1007/jhep03(2018)049.
Agrawal, Prateek, Marques-Tavares, Gustavo, & Xue, Wei. Opening up the QCD axion window. United States. doi:10.1007/jhep03(2018)049.
Agrawal, Prateek, Marques-Tavares, Gustavo, and Xue, Wei. Thu .
"Opening up the QCD axion window". United States. doi:10.1007/jhep03(2018)049. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1499139.
@article{osti_1499139,
title = {Opening up the QCD axion window},
author = {Agrawal, Prateek and Marques-Tavares, Gustavo and Xue, Wei},
abstractNote = {We present a new mechanism to deplete the energy density of the QCD axion, making decay constants as high as fa ≃ 1017 GeV viable for generic initial conditions. In our setup, the axion couples to a massless dark photon with a coupling that is moderately stronger than the axion coupling to gluons. Dark photons are produced copiously through a tachyonic instability when the axion field starts oscillating, and an exponential suppression of the axion density can be achieved. For a large part of the parameter space this dark radiation component of the universe can be observable in upcoming CMB experiments. Such dynamical depletion of the axion density ameliorates the isocurvature bound on the scale of inflation. The depletion also amplifies the power spectrum at scales that enter the horizon before particle production begins, potentially leading to axion miniclusters.},
doi = {10.1007/jhep03(2018)049},
journal = {Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)},
number = 3,
volume = 2018,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {3}
}
Web of Science
Figures / Tables:

Works referenced in this record:
Magnetic helicity generation from the cosmic axion field
journal, December 2005
- Campanelli, L.; Giannotti, M.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 72, Issue 12
Large field excursions and approximate discrete symmetries from a clockwork axion
journal, April 2016
- Kaplan, David E.; Rattazzi, Riccardo
- Physical Review D, Vol. 93, Issue 8
Cosmology of the invisible axion
journal, January 1983
- Preskill, John; Wise, Mark B.; Wilczek, Frank
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 120, Issue 1-3
The QCD axion, precisely
journal, January 2016
- di Cortona, Giovanni Grilli; Hardy, Edward; Vega, Javier Pardo
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 1
Revisiting the SN1987A gamma-ray limit on ultralight axion-like particles
journal, February 2015
- Payez, Alexandre; Evoli, Carmelo; Fischer, Tobias
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 02
Phenomenology of a pseudo-scalar inflaton: naturally large nongaussianity
journal, April 2011
- Barnaby, Neil; Namba, Ryo; Peloso, Marco
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2011, Issue 04
WISPy cold dark matter
journal, June 2012
- Arias, Paola; Cadamuro, Davide; Goodsell, Mark
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2012, Issue 06
Natural millicharged inflation
journal, May 2015
- Bai, Yang; Stefanek, Ben. A.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 91, Issue 9
Can confinement ensure natural CP invariance of strong interactions?
journal, April 1980
- Shifman, M. A.; Vainshtein, A. I.; Zakharov, V. I.
- Nuclear Physics B, Vol. 166, Issue 3
Thermal axion production in the primordial quark-gluon plasma
journal, April 2011
- Graf, Peter; Steffen, Frank Daniel
- Physical Review D, Vol. 83, Issue 7
Resonantly Detecting Axion-Mediated Forces with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
journal, October 2014
- Arvanitaki, Asimina; Geraci, Andrew A.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 16
Rolling axions during inflation: perturbativity and signatures
journal, September 2016
- Peloso, Marco; Sorbo, Lorenzo; Unal, Caner
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 09
Dimensionless constants, cosmology, and other dark matters
journal, January 2006
- Tegmark, Max; Aguirre, Anthony; Rees, Martin J.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 73, Issue 2
String axiverse
journal, June 2010
- Arvanitaki, Asimina; Dimopoulos, Savas; Dubovsky, Sergei
- Physical Review D, Vol. 81, Issue 12
Axion cosmology with a stronger QCD in the early universe
journal, April 1997
- Choi, Kiwoon; Kim, Jihn E.
- Nuclear Physics B, Vol. 490, Issue 1-2
The photo-philic QCD axion
journal, January 2017
- Farina, Marco; Pappadopulo, Duccio; Rompineve, Fabrizio
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2017, Issue 1
Natural Inflation and Quantum Gravity
journal, April 2015
- de la Fuente, Anton; Saraswat, Prashant; Sundrum, Raman
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 114, Issue 15
Gauge field production in axion inflation: Consequences for monodromy, non-Gaussianity in the CMB, and gravitational waves at interferometers
journal, January 2012
- Barnaby, Neil; Pajer, Enrico; Peloso, Marco
- Physical Review D, Vol. 85, Issue 2
Broadband and Resonant Approaches to Axion Dark Matter Detection
journal, September 2016
- Kahn, Yonatan; Safdi, Benjamin R.; Thaler, Jesse
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 117, Issue 14
Large-amplitude isothermal fluctuations and high-density dark-matter clumps
journal, July 1994
- Kolb, Edward W.; Tkachev, Igor I.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 50, Issue 2
Calculation of the axion mass based on high-temperature lattice quantum chromodynamics
text, January 2016
- Borsanyi, S.; Fodor, Z.; Guenther, J.
- Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg
Discovering the QCD axion with black holes and gravitational waves
journal, April 2015
- Arvanitaki, Asimina; Baryakhtar, Masha; Huang, Xinlu
- Physical Review D, Vol. 91, Issue 8
Axions in string theory
journal, June 2006
- Svrcek, Peter; Witten, Edward
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2006, Issue 06
Observable non-Gaussianity from gauge field production in slow roll inflation, and a challenging connection with magnetogenesis
journal, June 2012
- Barnaby, Neil; Namba, Ryo; Peloso, Marco
- Physical Review D, Vol. 85, Issue 12
Constraints on axion-like particles from non-observation of spectral modulations for X-ray point sources
journal, July 2017
- Conlon, Joseph P.; Day, Francesca; Jennings, Nicholas
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2017, Issue 07
A clockwork theory
journal, February 2017
- Giudice, Gian F.; McCullough, Matthew
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2017, Issue 2
Calculation of the axion mass based on high-temperature lattice quantum chromodynamics
journal, November 2016
- Borsanyi, S.; Fodor, Z.; Guenther, J.
- Nature, Vol. 539, Issue 7627
Effective Planck mass and the scale of inflation
journal, January 2016
- Kleban, Matthew; Mirbabayi, Mehrdad; Porrati, Massimo
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 01
Improved Experimental Limit on the Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron
journal, September 2006
- Baker, C. A.; Doyle, D. D.; Geltenbort, P.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 97, Issue 13
Naturally inflating on steep potentials through electromagnetic dissipation
journal, February 2010
- Anber, Mohamed M.; Sorbo, Lorenzo
- Physical Review D, Vol. 81, Issue 4
Black holes and large N species solution to the hierarchy problem
journal, April 2010
- Dvali, G.
- Fortschritte der Physik, Vol. 58, Issue 6
First Results from a Microwave Cavity Axion Search at
journal, February 2017
- Brubaker, B. M.; Zhong, L.; Gurevich, Y. V.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 118, Issue 6
Dark photon relic dark matter production through the dark axion portal
journal, June 2017
- Kaneta, Kunio; Lee, Hye-Sung; Yun, Seokhoon
- Physical Review D, Vol. 95, Issue 11
A cosmological bound on the invisible axion
journal, January 1983
- Abbott, L. F.; Sikivie, P.
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 120, Issue 1-3
Realizing the relaxion from multiple axions and its UV completion with high scale supersymmetry
journal, January 2016
- Choi, Kiwoon; Im, Sang Hui
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 1
Axion miniclusters
journal, April 1988
- Hogan, C. J.; Rees, M. J.
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 205, Issue 2-3
QCD Axion from a Higher Dimensional Gauge Field Theory
journal, March 2004
- Choi, Kiwoon
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 92, Issue 10
Some aspects of instantons
journal, September 1977
- Peccei, R. D.; Quinn, H. R.
- Il Nuovo Cimento A, Vol. 41, Issue 2
Cosmological 'seed' magnetic field from inflation
journal, May 1992
- Ratra, Bharat
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 391
Axion thermalization in the early universe
journal, July 2002
- Massó, Eduard; Rota, Francesc; Zsembinszki, Gabriel
- Physical Review D, Vol. 66, Issue 2
Dissipative axial inflation
journal, December 2016
- Notari, Alessio; Tywoniuk, Konrad
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 12
On the possibility of large axion decay constants
journal, June 2003
- Banks, Tom; Dine, Michael; Fox, P. J.
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2003, Issue 06
Dilution of cosmological axions by entropy production
journal, December 1990
- Lazarides, G.; Schaefer, Robert K.; Seckel, David
- Nuclear Physics B, Vol. 346, Issue 1
The not-so-harmless axion
journal, January 1983
- Dine, Michael; Fischler, Willy
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 120, Issue 1-3
Inflation and axion cosmology
journal, February 1988
- Linde, A. D.
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 201, Issue 4
Topological susceptibility at high temperature on the lattice
journal, September 2016
- Frison, J.; Kitano, R.; Matsufuru, H.
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 9
Supersymmetric axion grand unified theories and their predictions
journal, October 2016
- Co, Raymond T.; D’Eramo, Francesco; Hall, Lawrence J.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 94, Issue 7
Black hole mergers and the QCD axion at Advanced LIGO
journal, February 2017
- Arvanitaki, Asimina; Baryakhtar, Masha; Dimopoulos, Savas
- Physical Review D, Vol. 95, Issue 4
The cosmology of string theoretic axions
journal, November 1997
- Banks, Tom; Dine, Michael
- Nuclear Physics B, Vol. 505, Issue 1-2
Was the Universe actually radiation dominated prior to nucleosynthesis?
journal, August 2017
- Giblin, John T.; Kane, Gordon; Nesbit, Eva
- Physical Review D, Vol. 96, Issue 4
Parity Conservation in Quantum Chromodynamics
journal, August 1984
- Vafa, Cumrun; Witten, Edward
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 53, Issue 6
Supersymmetry, axions, and cosmology
journal, October 2003
- Banks, T.; Dine, M.; Graesser, M.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 68, Issue 7
Problem of Strong and Invariance in the Presence of Instantons
journal, January 1978
- Wilczek, F.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 40, Issue 5
Magnetogenesis from axion inflation
journal, October 2016
- Adshead, Peter; Giblin, John T.; Scully, Timothy R.
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 10
Reduced Limit on the Permanent Electric Dipole Moment of
journal, April 2016
- Graner, B.; Chen, Y.; Lindahl, E. G.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 116, Issue 16
Axion cosmology and the energy scale of inflation
journal, October 2008
- Hertzberg, Mark P.; Tegmark, Max; Wilczek, Frank
- Physical Review D, Vol. 78, Issue 8
Proposal for a Cosmic Axion Spin Precession Experiment (CASPEr)
journal, May 2014
- Budker, Dmitry; Graham, Peter W.; Ledbetter, Micah
- Physical Review X, Vol. 4, Issue 2
Primordial magnetic fields from pseudo Goldstone bosons
journal, December 1992
- Garretson, W. Daniel; Field, George B.; Carroll, Sean M.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 46, Issue 12
Portal Connecting Dark Photons and Axions
journal, March 2017
- Kaneta, Kunio; Lee, Hye-Sung; Yun, Seokhoon
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 118, Issue 10
Extranatural Inflation
journal, June 2003
- Arkani-Hamed, Nima; Cheng, Hsin-Chia; Creminelli, Paolo
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 90, Issue 22
Revised experimental upper limit on the electric dipole moment of the neutron
journal, November 2015
- Pendlebury, J. M.; Afach, S.; Ayres, N. J.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 92, Issue 9
Revisiting the Bound on Axion-Photon Coupling from Globular Clusters
journal, November 2014
- Ayala, Adrian; Domínguez, Inma; Giannotti, Maurizio
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 19
Cosmological magnetic fields from primordial helicity
journal, October 2000
- Field, George B.; Carroll, Sean M.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 62, Issue 10
Constraints on Axion-like Particles from X-Ray Observations of NGC1275
journal, September 2017
- Berg, Marcus; Conlon, Joseph P.; Day, Francesca
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 847, Issue 2
Large Non-Gaussianity in Axion Inflation
journal, May 2011
- Barnaby, Neil; Peloso, Marco
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 18
Can decaying particles raise the upperbound on the Peccei-Quinn scale?
journal, September 1996
- Kawasaki, M.; Moroi, T.; Yanagida, T.
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 383, Issue 3
Axion cold dark matter in nonstandard cosmologies
journal, March 2010
- Visinelli, Luca; Gondolo, Paolo
- Physical Review D, Vol. 81, Issue 6
Gauge-preheating and the end of axion inflation
journal, December 2015
- Adshead, Peter; Jr., John T. Giblin; Scully, Timothy R.
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 12
Suppressing the QCD axion abundance by hidden monopoles
journal, February 2016
- Kawasaki, Masahiro; Takahashi, Fuminobu; Yamada, Masaki
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 753
Conservation in the Presence of Pseudoparticles
journal, June 1977
- Peccei, R. D.; Quinn, Helen R.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 38, Issue 25
A new bound on axion-like particles
journal, December 2017
- Marsh, M. C. David; Russell, Helen R.; Fabian, Andrew C.
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2017, Issue 12
Weak-Interaction Singlet and Strong Invariance
journal, July 1979
- Kim, Jihn E.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 43, Issue 2
Saving the invisible axion
journal, September 1983
- Steinhardt, Paul J.; Turner, Michaek S.
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 129, Issue 1-2
Axion cosmology, lattice QCD and the dilute instanton gas
journal, January 2016
- Borsanyi, Sz.; Dierigl, M.; Fodor, Z.
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 752
High-scale axions without isocurvature from inflationary dynamics
journal, May 2016
- Kearney, John; Orlofsky, Nicholas; Pierce, Aaron
- Physical Review D, Vol. 93, Issue 9
Thermal axion production
journal, January 2014
- Salvio, Alberto; Strumia, Alessandro; Xue, Wei
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2014, Issue 01
Future directions in the microwave cavity search for dark matter axions
journal, July 2014
- Shokair, T. M.; Root, J.; Van Bibber, K. A.
- International Journal of Modern Physics A, Vol. 29, Issue 19
Primordial magnetic fields from dark energy
journal, August 2002
- Lee, Da-Shin; Lee, Wolung; Ng, Kin-Wang
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 542, Issue 1-2
Axions, instantons, and the lattice
journal, November 2017
- Dine, Michael; Draper, Patrick; Stephenson-Haskins, Laurel
- Physical Review D, Vol. 96, Issue 9
Natural inflation with multiple sub-Planckian axions
journal, July 2014
- Choi, Kiwoon; Kim, Hyungjin; Yun, Seokhoon
- Physical Review D, Vol. 90, Issue 2
Einstein equivalence principle and the polarization of radio galaxies
journal, June 1991
- Carroll, Sean M.; Field, George B.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 43, Issue 12
Towards the theory of reheating after inflation
journal, September 1997
- Kofman, Lev; Linde, Andrei; Starobinsky, Alexei A.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 56, Issue 6
Any light particle search II — Technical Design Report
journal, September 2013
- Bähre, R.; Döbrich, B.; Dreyling-Eschweiler, J.
- Journal of Instrumentation, Vol. 8, Issue 09
Axion Isocurvature and Magnetic Monopoles
journal, April 2016
- Nomura, Yasunori; Rajendran, Surjeet; Sanches, Fabio
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 116, Issue 14
The QCD axion and moduli stabilisation
journal, May 2006
- Conlon, Joseph P.
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2006, Issue 05
Gauge fields and inflation: Chiral gravitational waves, fluctuations, and the Lyth bound
journal, July 2013
- Adshead, Peter; Martinec, Emil; Wyman, Mark
- Physical Review D, Vol. 88, Issue 2
Relaxation from particle production
journal, December 2016
- Hook, Anson; Marques-Tavares, Gustavo
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 12
Lattice QCD input for axion cosmology
journal, August 2015
- Berkowitz, Evan; Buchoff, Michael I.; Rinaldi, Enrico
- Physical Review D, Vol. 92, Issue 3
Any light particle search II — Technical Design Report
journal, September 2013
- Bähre, R.; Döbrich, B.; Dreyling-Eschweiler, J.
- Journal of Instrumentation, Vol. 8, Issue 09
Works referencing / citing this record:
Axion cosmology with early matter domination
journal, September 2018
- Nelson, Ann E.; Xiao, Huangyu
- Physical Review D, Vol. 98, Issue 6
First Results from ABRACADABRA-10 cm: A Search for Sub- Axion Dark Matter
journal, March 2019
- Ouellet, Jonathan L.; Salemi, Chiara P.; Foster, Joshua W.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 122, Issue 12
Axion-like relics: new constraints from old comagnetometer data
journal, January 2020
- Bloch, Itay M.; Hochberg, Yonit; Kuflik, Eric
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2020, Issue 1
QCD axion window and low-scale inflation
journal, July 2018
- Takahashi, Fuminobu; Yin, Wen; Guth, Alan H.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 98, Issue 1
Dark photon dark matter produced by axion oscillations
journal, April 2019
- Co, Raymond T.; Pierce, Aaron; Zhang, Zhengkang
- Physical Review D, Vol. 99, Issue 7
Coherent relaxion dark matter
journal, December 2019
- Banerjee, Abhishek; Kim, Hyungjin; Perez, Gilad
- Physical Review D, Vol. 100, Issue 11
Stochastic axion scenario
journal, August 2018
- Graham, Peter W.; Scherlis, Adam
- Physical Review D, Vol. 98, Issue 3
Parametric resonance production of ultralight vector dark matter
journal, February 2019
- Dror, Jeff A.; Harigaya, Keisuke; Narayan, Vijay
- Physical Review D, Vol. 99, Issue 3
Axion misalignment driven to the bottom
journal, May 2019
- Co, Raymond T.; Gonzalez, Eric; Harigaya, Keisuke
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2019, Issue 5
Implications of the dark axion portal for SHiP and FASER and the advantages of monophoton signals
journal, September 2019
- deNiverville, Patrick; Lee, Hye-Sung
- Physical Review D, Vol. 100, Issue 5
Clockworking FIMPs
journal, October 2018
- Goudelis, Andreas; Mohan, Kirtimaan A.; Sengupta, Dipan
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2018, Issue 10
Design and implementation of the ABRACADABRA-10 cm axion dark matter search
journal, March 2019
- Ouellet, Jonathan L.; Salemi, Chiara P.; Foster, Joshua W.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 99, Issue 5
Super-Planckian axions from near-conformality
journal, November 2019
- Fonseca, Nayara; von Harling, Benedict; de Lima, Leonardo
- Physical Review D, Vol. 100, Issue 10
Extension of the electrodynamics in the presence of the axion and dark photon
journal, February 2019
- Huang, Fa Peng; Lee, Hye-Sung
- International Journal of Modern Physics A, Vol. 34, Issue 03n04
Z ′ mediated WIMPs: dead, dying, or soon to be detected?
journal, November 2019
- Blanco, Carlos; Escudero, Miguel; Hooper, Dan
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2019, Issue 11
Clockwork axions in cosmology. Is chromonatural inflation chrononatural?
journal, October 2018
- Agrawal, Prateek; Fan, JiJi; Reece, Matthew
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2018, Issue 10
Dynamical axion misalignment with small instantons
journal, December 2019
- Buen-Abad, Manuel A.; Fan, JiJi
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2019, Issue 12
Audible axions
journal, January 2019
- Machado, Camila S.; Ratzinger, Wolfram; Schwaller, Pedro
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2019, Issue 1
Figures / Tables found in this record: