Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology) |
Events During the Week of March 6th through March 13th, 2022
Monday, March 7th, 2022
- No events scheduled
Tuesday, March 8th, 2022
- No events scheduled
Wednesday, March 9th, 2022
- No events scheduled
Thursday, March 10th, 2022
- No events scheduled
Friday, March 11th, 2022
- Gravitational Wave Probes of Axion Rotations Responsible for Dark Matter and Baryon Asymmetry
- Time: 1:00 pm
- Place: Chamberlin 5280
- Speaker: Raymond Co, University of Minnesota
- Abstract: We established a paradigm where the (QCD) axion’s novel cosmological evolution, a rotation in the field space, gives rise to dark matter and the baryon asymmetry. The axion rotations also provide a natural origin for a kination era, where the total energy density is dominated by the kinetic term of the axion field, preceded by an early era of matter domination. We investigate the effects of this cosmological scenario on the spectrum of possible primordial gravitational waves from inflation or cosmic strings and find that the spectrum features a triangular peak. As a result, future gravitational wave observations can probe the viable parameter space of kination, including regions that produce axion dark matter by the kinetic misalignment mechanism or the baryon asymmetry by axiogenesis. Lastly, the axion rotation may also source the cosmic perturbations with an observable amount of non-Gaussianity.
- Host: George Wojcik