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Title: Dynamical axion misalignment with small instantons

Abstract

We present a new mechanism to relax the initial misalignment angle of the QCD axion and raise the cosmological bound on the axion decay constant. The QCD axion receives a contribution from small UV instantons during inflation, which raises its mass to the inflationary Hubble scale. This makes the axion start rolling down its potential early on. In the scenario, the standard model Yukawa couplings of quarks are dynamical, being of order one during the inflationary era and reducing to their standard model values once it ends. This means that after inflation the contribution of the small instantons is suppressed, and the axion potential reduces to the standard one from the usual IR instantons. As a result, when the axion starts to oscillate again after inflation, the initial misalignment angle is suppressed due to the dynamics during inflation. While the general idea of dynamical axion misalignment has been discussed in the literature before, we present in detail the major bottleneck on the mismatching between the minima of the axion potentials during and after inflation, and how it is circumvented in our scenario via the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism. Taking into account of all the constraints, we find that the axion decay constantmore » could be raised to the GUT scale, 1015 GeV, in our scenario.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1]
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  1. Brown Univ., Providence, RI (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Brown Univ., Providence, RI (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP) (SC-25); National Science Foundation (NSF)
OSTI Identifier:
1596979
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0010010; PHY-1748958
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: 2019; Journal Issue: 12; Journal ID: ISSN 1029-8479
Publisher:
Springer Berlin
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; Solitons Monopoles and Instantons; Cosmology of Theories beyond the SM; Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

Citation Formats

Buen-Abad, Manuel A., and Fan, JiJi. Dynamical axion misalignment with small instantons. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1007/JHep12(2019)161.
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Buen-Abad, Manuel A., & Fan, JiJi. Dynamical axion misalignment with small instantons. United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHep12(2019)161
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Buen-Abad, Manuel A., and Fan, JiJi. Mon . "Dynamical axion misalignment with small instantons". United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHep12(2019)161. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1596979.
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@article{osti_1596979,
title = {Dynamical axion misalignment with small instantons},
author = {Buen-Abad, Manuel A. and Fan, JiJi},
abstractNote = {We present a new mechanism to relax the initial misalignment angle of the QCD axion and raise the cosmological bound on the axion decay constant. The QCD axion receives a contribution from small UV instantons during inflation, which raises its mass to the inflationary Hubble scale. This makes the axion start rolling down its potential early on. In the scenario, the standard model Yukawa couplings of quarks are dynamical, being of order one during the inflationary era and reducing to their standard model values once it ends. This means that after inflation the contribution of the small instantons is suppressed, and the axion potential reduces to the standard one from the usual IR instantons. As a result, when the axion starts to oscillate again after inflation, the initial misalignment angle is suppressed due to the dynamics during inflation. While the general idea of dynamical axion misalignment has been discussed in the literature before, we present in detail the major bottleneck on the mismatching between the minima of the axion potentials during and after inflation, and how it is circumvented in our scenario via the Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism. Taking into account of all the constraints, we find that the axion decay constant could be raised to the GUT scale, 1015 GeV, in our scenario.},
doi = {10.1007/JHep12(2019)161},
journal = {Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)},
number = 12,
volume = 2019,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {12}
}
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DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/JHep12(2019)161
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