A new mechanism for producing axion dark matter is proposed. By invoking low-scale inflation and a kinetic mixing between the axion and the inflaton, it is shown that the axion is driven to a field point slightly displaced from the potential minimum, which can give rise to the observed dark matter abundance. In this framework, different combinations of the axion and inflaton fields play various cosmological roles, including generating the cosmological perturbations, reheating the universe, and serving as dark matter. The kinetic mixing also relates the dark matter lifetime with the reheating temperature. The mechanism tames axions that would otherwise overdominate the universe, and thus opens up new windows in the axion parameter space, including decay constants at the GUT scale and higher.

Inflaxion dark matter / Kobayashi, T.; Ubaldi, L.. - In: JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS. - ISSN 1029-8479. - 2019:8(2019). [10.1007/JHEP08(2019)147]

Inflaxion dark matter

Kobayashi, T.;Ubaldi, L.
2019-01-01

Abstract

A new mechanism for producing axion dark matter is proposed. By invoking low-scale inflation and a kinetic mixing between the axion and the inflaton, it is shown that the axion is driven to a field point slightly displaced from the potential minimum, which can give rise to the observed dark matter abundance. In this framework, different combinations of the axion and inflaton fields play various cosmological roles, including generating the cosmological perturbations, reheating the universe, and serving as dark matter. The kinetic mixing also relates the dark matter lifetime with the reheating temperature. The mechanism tames axions that would otherwise overdominate the universe, and thus opens up new windows in the axion parameter space, including decay constants at the GUT scale and higher.
2019
2019
8
10.1007/JHEP08(2019)147
Kobayashi, T.; Ubaldi, L.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11767/124909
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