Axion dark matter and Planck favor non-minimal couplings to gravity

Folkerts, Sarah; Germani, Cristiano and Redondo, Javier (2014): Axion dark matter and Planck favor non-minimal couplings to gravity. In: Physics Letters B, Vol. 728: pp. 532-536

Abstract

Constraints on inflationary scenarios and isocurvature perturbations have excluded the simplest and most generic models of dark matter based on QCD axions. Considering non-minimal kinetic couplings of scalar fields to gravity substantially changes this picture. The axion can account for the observed dark matter density avoiding the overproduction of isocurvature fluctuations. Finally, we show that assuming the same non-minimal kinetic coupling to the axion (dark matter) and to the standard model Higgs boson (inflaton) provides a minimal picture of early time cosmology. (C) 2013 The Authors

• Item Type: Journal article
• Form of publication: Publisher's Version
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 0370-2693
• Annotation: SCOAP3-Publikation
• Language: English