Tom Banks et al JCAP06(2003)001 doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2003/06/001
On the possibility of large axion decay constants
Tom Banks, Michael Dine, P J Fox and E Gorbatov
Show affiliationsThe decay constant of the QCD axion is required by observation to be small compared with the Planck scale. In theories of `natural inflation' and certain proposed anthropic solutions of the cosmological constant problem it would be interesting to obtain a large decay constant for axion-like fields from microscopic physics. String theory is the only context in which one can sensibly address this question. Here we survey a number of periodic fields in string theory in a variety of string vacua. In some examples, the decay constant can be parametrically larger than the Planck scale but the effective action then contains appreciable harmonics of order fA/Mp. As a result, these fields are no better inflaton candidates than Planck scale axions.
- Keywords
- PACS
-
14.80.Mz Axions and other Nambu-Goldstone bosons (Majorons, familons, etc.)
- Subjects
- Dates
-
Issue 06 (June 2003)
Received 2 April 2003, accepted for publication 4 May 2003
Published 11 June 2003
-
On the possibility of large axion decay constants
Tom Banks et al JCAP06(2003)001
-
New reducible five-brane solutions in M-theory
Richard Clarkson et al JHEP08(2004)025
-
A critical assessment of the elastic properties and effective wall thickness of single-walled carbon nanotubes
C Y Wang and L C Zhang 2008 Nanotechnology 19 075705
-
Quasi-normal modes of warped black holes and warped AdS/CFT correspondence
Bin Chen and Zhi-bo Xu JHEP11(2009)091
-
String windings in the early universe
Richard Easther et al JCAP02(2005)009
-
Nanoindentation and the dynamic characterization of viscoelastic solids
E G Herbert et al 2008 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 41 074021
-
Field-free molecular alignment for measuring ionization probability
V Loriot et al 2008 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 41 015604
-
Final report, on-going key comparison BIPM.QM-K1: Ozone at ambient level, comparison with LNE, 2008
Joële Viallon et al 2009 Metrologia 46 08013
-
Phase-stable single-pass cryogenic amplifier for high repetition rate few-cycle laser pulses
Akira Ozawa et al 2009 New J. Phys. 11 083029
-
Open Strings from
= 4 Super Yang-Mills
Vijay Balasubramanian et al JHEP08(2002)037
Related review articles
What's this?- Does the growth of structure affect our dynamical models of the Universe? The averaging, backreaction, and fitting problems in cosmology
- Scattering amplitudes: the most perfect microscopic structures in the universe
- Loop quantum cosmology: a status report