- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Cogenesis with ALPs

Disha Bandyopadhyay1,*, Debasish Borah1,2,†, and Arnab Dasgupta2,‡

  • *Contact author: b.disha@iitg.ac.in
  • †Contact author: dborah@iitg.ac.in
  • ‡Contact author: arnabdasgupta@pitt.edu
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 112, 095033 – Published 21 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8j6n-klby

Abstract

We propose a novel cogenesis scenario by utilizing the two-body decay of heavy right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) via an effective operator involving an axionlike particle (ALP), dark matter (DM), and a light chiral fermion νR. This allows the two-body decay of heavy RHNs into νR and ALP, thereby generating a lepton asymmetry in νR which later gets transferred to left-handed leptons via sizeable Yukawa coupling with a neutrinophilic Higgs doublet. The asymmetry in left-handed leptons is then converted into baryon asymmetry via electroweak sphalerons. The lepton number violation by heavy RHNs also induces a one-loop Majorana mass of νR rendering the light neutrinos to be Majorana fermions. Successful leptogenesis constrains the parameter space in terms of RHN mass and axion decay constant. This has interesting consequences for both ALP and QCD axion DM parameter space within reach of several ongoing and near future experiments. We also propose a Dirac version of this scenario without any total lepton number violation. This leads to a long-lived asymmetric Dirac fermion contributing partially to DM, thereby opening up more parameter space for ALP. In addition to axion search experiments, the proposed scenarios can have observable signatures at cosmic microwave background and DM search as well as terrestrial particle physics experiments.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (97)

  1. Particle Data Group Collaboration, Review of particle physics, Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2020, 083C01 (2020).
  2. Planck Collaboration, Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters, Astron. Astrophys. 641, A6 (2020).
  3. E. W. Kolb and M. S. Turner, The early universe, Front. Phys. 69, 1 (1990).
  4. G. Jungman, M. Kamionkowski, and K. Griest, Supersymmetric dark matter, Phys. Rep. 267, 195 (1996).
  5. S. Weinberg, Cosmological production of baryons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 42, 850 (1979).
  6. E. W. Kolb and S. Wolfram, Baryon number generation in the early universe, Nucl. Phys. B172, 224 (1980).
  7. M. Fukugita and T. Yanagida, Baryogenesis without grand unification, Phys. Lett. B 174, 45 (1986).
  8. LZ Collaboration, First dark matter search results from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 041002 (2023).
  9. S. Davidson and A. Ibarra, A lower bound on the right-handed neutrino mass from leptogenesis, Phys. Lett. B 535, 25 (2002).
  10. A. Pilaftsis and T. E. J. Underwood, Resonant leptogenesis, Nucl. Phys. B692, 303 (2004).
  11. C. A. J. O’Hare, Cosmology of axion dark matter, Proc. Sci., COSMICWISPers (2024) 040 [arXiv:2403.17697].
  12. F. Wilczek, Problem of strong P and T invariance in the presence of instantons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 279 (1978).
  13. S. Weinberg, A new light boson?, Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 223 (1978).
  14. R. D. Peccei and H. R. Quinn, CP conservation in the presence of instantons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 38, 1440 (1977).
  15. R. D. Peccei and H. R. Quinn, Constraints imposed by CP conservation in the presence of instantons, Phys. Rev. D 16, 1791 (1977).
  16. J. Preskill, M. B. Wise, and F. Wilczek, Cosmology of the invisible axion, Phys. Lett. 120B, 127 (1983).
  17. L. F. Abbott and P. Sikivie, A cosmological bound on the invisible axion, Phys. Lett. 120B, 133 (1983).
  18. M. Dine and W. Fischler, The not so harmless axion, Phys. Lett. 120B, 137 (1983).
  19. G. G. Raffelt, Astrophysical axion bounds, Lect. Notes Phys. 741, 51 (2008).
  20. A. Caputo and G. Raffelt, Astrophysical axion bounds: The 2024 edition, in 1st Training School of the COST Action COSMIC WISPers (CA21106), Proc. Sci., COSMICWISPers (2024) 041 [arXiv:2401.13728].
  21. A. Kusenko, K. Schmitz, and T. T. Yanagida, Leptogenesis via axion oscillations after inflation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 011302 (2015).
  22. G. Servant, Baryogenesis from strong CP violation and the QCD axion, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 171803 (2014).
  23. P. Adshead and E. I. Sfakianakis, Leptogenesis from left-handed neutrino production during axion inflation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 091301 (2016).
  24. S. Ipek and T. M. P. Tait, Early cosmological period of QCD confinement, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 112001 (2019).
  25. D. Croon, J. N. Howard, S. Ipek, and T. M. P. Tait, QCD baryogenesis, Phys. Rev. D 101, 055042 (2020).
  26. R. T. Co and K. Harigaya, Axiogenesis, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 111602 (2020).
  27. G. Ballesteros, J. Redondo, A. Ringwald, and C. Tamarit, Standard model—axion—seesaw—Higgs portal inflation. Five problems of particle physics and cosmology solved in one stroke, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2017) 001.
  28. J. D. Clarke and R. R. Volkas, Technically natural nonsupersymmetric model of neutrino masses, baryogenesis, the strong CP problem, and dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 93, 035001 (2016).
  29. R. T. Co, N. Fernandez, A. Ghalsasi, L. J. Hall, and K. Harigaya, Lepto-axiogenesis, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2021) 017.
  30. A. H. Sopov and R. R. Volkas, VISHν: Solving five standard model shortcomings with a Poincaré-protected electroweak scale, Phys. Dark Universe 42, 101381 (2023).
  31. V. Domcke, K. Kamada, K. Mukaida, K. Schmitz, and M. Yamada, Wash-in leptogenesis after axion inflation, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2023) 053.
  32. D. Borah, N. Das, S. Jyoti Das, and R. Samanta, Cogenesis of baryon and dark matter with PBHs and the QCD axion, Phys. Rev. D 110, 115013 (2024).
  33. S. Mishra, Triplet Higgs assisted leptogenesis from axion oscillation after inflation, arXiv:2506.13412.
  34. J. W. Foster, S. Kumar, B. R. Safdi, and Y. Soreq, Dark grand unification in the axiverse: Decaying axion dark matter and spontaneous baryogenesis, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2022) 119.
  35. M. Cataldi, A. Mariotti, F. Sala, and M. Vanvlasselaer, ALP leptogenesis: Non-thermal right-handed neutrinos from axions, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2024) 125.
  36. A. Datta, S. K. Manna, and A. Sil, Spontaneous leptogenesis with sub-GeV axionlike particles, Phys. Rev. D 110, 095035 (2024).
  37. J. Heeck, Leptogenesis with lepton-number-violating Dirac neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 88, 076004 (2013).
  38. D. Borah, S. Jyoti Das, and N. Okada, Affleck-Dine cogenesis of baryon and dark matter, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2023) 004.
  39. N. F. Bell, B. Kayser, and S. S. C. Law, Electromagnetic leptogenesis, Phys. Rev. D 78, 085024 (2008).
  40. D. Choudhury, N. Mahajan, S. Patra, and U. Sarkar, Radiative leptogenesis at the TeV scale, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2012) 017.
  41. D. Borah and A. Dasgupta, Electromagnetic leptogenesis with light-heavy sterile neutrinos, Phys. Lett. B 866, 139557 (2025).
  42. U. Maitra, B. Mukhopadhyaya, S. Nandi, S. K. Rai, and A. Shivaji, Searching for an elusive charged Higgs boson at the large hadron collider, Phys. Rev. D 89, 055024 (2014).
  43. N. Haba and K. Tsumura, ν-two Higgs doublet model and its collider phenomenology, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2011) 068.
  44. S. Gabriel, B. Mukhopadhyaya, S. Nandi, and S. K. Rai, Inverted neutrino mass hierarchy and new signals of a chromophobic charged Higgs at the large hadron collider, Phys. Lett. B 669, 180 (2008).
  45. O. Seto, Large invisible decay of a Higgs boson to neutrinos, Phys. Rev. D 92, 073005 (2015).
  46. E. Bertuzzo, Y. F. Perez G., O. Sumensari, and R. Zukanovich Funchal, Limits on neutrinophilic Two-Higgs-doublet models from flavor physics, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2016) 018.
  47. K. Huitu, T. J. Kärkkäinen, S. Mondal, and S. K. Rai, Exploring collider aspects of a neutrinophilic Higgs doublet model in multilepton channels, Phys. Rev. D 97, 035026 (2018).
  48. W. Buchmuller, P. Di Bari, and M. Plumacher, Leptogenesis for pedestrians, Ann. Phys. (Amsterdam) 315, 305 (2005).
  49. A. Abada, S. Davidson, F.-X. Josse-Michaux, M. Losada, and A. Riotto, Flavor issues in leptogenesis, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2006) 004.
  50. E. Nardi, Y. Nir, E. Roulet, and J. Racker, The importance of flavor in leptogenesis, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2006) 164.
  51. A. Abada, S. Davidson, A. Ibarra, F. X. Josse-Michaux, M. Losada, and A. Riotto, Flavour matters in leptogenesis, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2006) 010.
  52. S. Blanchet and P. Di Bari, Flavor effects on leptogenesis predictions, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2007) 018.
  53. P. S. Bhupal Dev, P. Millington, A. Pilaftsis, and D. Teresi, Flavour covariant transport equations: An application to resonant leptogenesis, Nucl. Phys. B886, 569 (2014).
  54. P. S. B. Dev, P. Di Bari, B. Garbrecht, S. Lavignac, P. Millington, and D. Teresi, Flavor effects in leptogenesis, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 33, 1842001 (2018).
  55. E. Masso, F. Rota, and G. Zsembinszki, On axion thermalization in the early universe, Phys. Rev. D 66, 023004 (2002).
  56. K. Dick, M. Lindner, M. Ratz, and D. Wright, Leptogenesis with Dirac neutrinos, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 4039 (2000).
  57. H. Murayama and A. Pierce, Realistic Dirac leptogenesis, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 271601 (2002).
  58. D. G. Cerdeno, A. Dedes, and T. E. J. Underwood, The minimal phantom sector of the standard model: Higgs phenomenology and Dirac leptogenesis, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2006) 067.
  59. CAST Collaboration, An improved limit on the axion-photon coupling from the CAST experiment, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2007) 010.
  60. CAST Collaboration, New CAST limit on the axion-photon interaction, Nat. Phys. 13, 584 (2017).
  61. M. S. Turner, Axions from sn1987a, Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 1797 (1988).
  62. A. Burrows, M. S. Turner, and R. P. Brinkmann, Axions and SN1987a, Phys. Rev. D 39, 1020 (1989).
  63. G. Raffelt and D. Seckel, Bounds on exotic-particle interactions from SN1987a, Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 1793 (1988).
  64. Fermi-LAT Collaboration, Search for spectral irregularities due to photon–axionlike-particle oscillations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 161101 (2016).
  65. ADMX Collaboration, A high resolution search for dark-matter axions, Phys. Rev. D 74, 012006 (2006).
  66. I. Stern, ADMX status, Proc. Sci., ICHEP2016 (2016) 198 [arXiv:1612.08296].
  67. ADMX Collaboration, Extended search for the invisible axion with the axion dark matter experiment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 101303 (2020).
  68. A. Ayala, I. Domínguez, M. Giannotti, A. Mirizzi, and O. Straniero, Revisiting the bound on axion-photon coupling from globular clusters, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 191302 (2014).
  69. D. Budker, P. W. Graham, M. Ledbetter, S. Rajendran, and A. Sushkov, Proposal for a cosmic axion spin precession experiment (CASPEr), Phys. Rev. X 4, 021030 (2014).
  70. D. Alesini, D. Babusci, D. Di Gioacchino, C. Gatti, G. Lamanna, and C. Ligi, The KLASH proposal, arXiv:1707.06010.
  71. D. Alesini et al., KLASH conceptual design report, arXiv:1911.02427.
  72. D. Alesini et al., The future search for low-frequency axions and new physics with the FLASH resonant cavity experiment at Frascati National Laboratories, Phys. Dark Universe 42, 101370 (2023).
  73. Y. Kahn, B. R. Safdi, and J. Thaler, Broadband and resonant approaches to axion dark matter detection, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 141801 (2016).
  74. J. L. Ouellet et al., First results from ABRACADABRA-10 cm: A search for Sub-μeV axion dark matter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 121802 (2019).
  75. S. Lee, S. Ahn, J. Choi, B. R. Ko, and Y. K. Semertzidis, Axion dark matter search around 6.7  μeV, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 101802 (2020).
  76. Y. K. Semertzidis et al., Axion dark matter research with IBS/CAPP, arXiv:1910.11591.
  77. MADMAX Working Group Collaboration, Dielectric haloscopes: A new way to detect axion dark matter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 091801 (2017).
  78. J. K. Vogel et al., IAXO—the international axion observatory, in 8th Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs (2013), 2, arXiv:1302.3273.
  79. IAXO Collaboration, Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO), J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2019) 047.
  80. M. Meyer, M. Giannotti, A. Mirizzi, J. Conrad, and M. A. Sánchez-Conde, Fermi Large Area Telescope as a galactic supernovae axionscope, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 011103 (2017).
  81. V. Cardoso, O. J. C. Dias, G. S. Hartnett, M. Middleton, P. Pani, and J. E. Santos, Constraining the mass of dark photons and axion-like particles through black-hole superradiance, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2018) 043.
  82. J. E. Kim, Weak interaction singlet and strong CP invariance, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 103 (1979).
  83. M. A. Shifman, A. I. Vainshtein, and V. I. Zakharov, Can confinement ensure natural CP invariance of strong interactions?, Nucl. Phys. B166, 493 (1980).
  84. K. Abazajian et al., CMB-S4 science case, reference design, and project plan, arXiv:1907.04473.
  85. CMB-HD Collaboration, Snowmass2021 CMB-HD white paper, arXiv:2203.05728.
  86. D. Borah, N. Das, and R. Roshan, Observable gravitational waves and Δ Neff with global lepton number symmetry and dark matter, Phys. Rev. D 110, 075042 (2024).
  87. K. N. Abazajian and J. Heeck, Observing Dirac neutrinos in the cosmic microwave background, Phys. Rev. D 100, 075027 (2019).
  88. A. M. Abdullahi et al., The present and future status of heavy neutral leptons, J. Phys. G 50, 020501 (2023).
  89. NA62 Collaboration, Search for heavy neutral lepton production in K+ decays, Phys. Lett. B 778, 137 (2018).
  90. FASER Collaboration, FASER’s physics reach for long-lived particles, Phys. Rev. D 99, 095011 (2019).
  91. DUNE Collaboration, Prospects for beyond the standard model physics searches at the deep underground neutrino experiment, Eur. Phys. J. C 81, 322 (2021).
  92. CODEX-b Collaboration, Expression of interest for the CODEX-b detector, Eur. Phys. J. C 80, 1177 (2020).
  93. D. Curtin et al., Long-Lived particles at the energy frontier: The MATHUSLA physics case, Rep. Prog. Phys. 82, 116201 (2019).
  94. M. Drewes et al., A white paper on keV sterile neutrino dark matter, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2017) 025.
  95. A. de Gouvea, J. Jenkins, and N. Vasudevan, Neutrino phenomenology of very low-energy seesaws, Phys. Rev. D 75, 013003 (2007).
  96. J. A. Dror, P. Sandick, B. Shams Es Haghi, and F. Yang, Indirect detection of hot dark matter, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2025) 127.
  97. J. Martin Camalich, M. Pospelov, P. N. H. Vuong, R. Ziegler, and J. Zupan, Quark flavor phenomenology of the QCD axion, Phys. Rev. D 102, 015023 (2020).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 112, 095033– Published 21 November, 2025
  • Received 4 July 2025
  • Accepted 31 October 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation