Contatto di riferimento: Barbara Simoni
Partecipanti: Dr. Viraf Mehta (Unviersity of Heidelberg)
Abstract: We discuss the effective use of monodromy in enhancing an axion’s maximal potential energy in the context of dark matter. The typical axions used in dark matter models are non-thermally produced via the misalignment mechanism and, due to the periodicity of the potential, have potentials that are bounded from above. This leads to significant constraints on the allowed masses and couplings to visible matter. However, with the introduction of a monodromy, this upper bound may be alleviated significantly and, in this first approach, we discuss the classical and quantum effects that may arise, and their possible cosmological consequences.