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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Heavy QCD axion dark matter from avoided level crossing

David Cyncynates1,* and Jedidiah O. Thompson2,†

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
  • 2Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

  • *davidcyn@uw.edu
  • †jedidiah@stanford.edu
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Phys. Rev. D 108, L091703 – Published 21 November, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.L091703

Abstract

The QCD axion offers a natural resolution to the strong-CP problem and provides a compelling dark matter candidate. If the QCD axion constitutes all the dark matter, the simplest models pick out a narrow range of masses around 100  μeV. We point out a natural production mechanism for QCD axion dark matter at masses up to existing astrophysical bounds [O(20  meV) for the most minimal models and O(1  eV) for nucleophobic models]. If the QCD axion mixes with a sterile axion, the relative temperature dependence of their potentials can lead to an avoided level crossing of their mass eigenstates. This leads to a near-total transfer of energy density from the sterile axion to the QCD axion, resulting in a late-time QCD axion abundance sufficient to make up all of present-day dark matter. Our result provides additional theoretical motivation for several direct detection experiments that will probe this part of parameter space in the near future.

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Phys. Rev. D 108, L091703– Published 21 November, 2023
  • Received 6 September 2023
  • Accepted 28 October 2023
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