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UV and IR effects in axion quality control

  • Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
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  • Published: 08 March 2024
  • Volume 2024, article number 51, (2024)
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UV and IR effects in axion quality control
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  • C. P. Burgess1,2,
  • Gongjun Choi  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8515-55863 &
  • F. Quevedo4 

  • 278 Accesses

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A preprint version of the article is available at arXiv.

Abstract

Motivated by recent discussions and the absence of exact global symmetries in UV completions of gravity we re-examine the axion quality problem (and naturalness issues more generally) using antisymmetric Kalb-Ramond (KR) fields rather than their pseudoscalar duals, as suggested by string and higher dimensional theories. Two types of axions can be identified: a model independent S-type axion dual to a two form Bμν in 4D and a T-type axion coming directly as 4D scalar Kaluza-Klein (KK) components of higher-dimensional tensor fields. For T-type axions our conclusions largely agree with earlier workers for the axion quality problem, but we also reconcile why T-type axions can couple to matter localized on 3-branes with Planck suppressed strength even when the axion decay constants are of order the KK scale. For S-type axions, we review the duality between form fields and massive scalars and show how duality impacts naturalness arguments about the UV sensitivity of the scalar potential. In particular UV contributions on the KR side suppress contributions on the scalar side by powers of m/M with m the axion mass and M the UV scale. We re-examine how the axion quality problem is formulated on the dual side and compare to recent treatments. We study how axion quality is affected by the ubiquity of p-form gauge potentials (for both p = 2 and p = 3) in string vacua and identify two criteria that can potentially lead to a problem. We also show why most fields do not satisfy these criteria, but when they do the existence of multiple fields also provides mechanisms for resolving it. We conclude that the quality problem is easily evaded.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Philippe Brax and Junwu Huang for helpful conversations. CB’s research was partially supported by funds from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. Research at the Perimeter Institute is supported in part by the Government of Canada through NSERC and by the Province of Ontario through MRI. The work of FQ has been partially supported by STFC consolidated grants ST/P000681/1, ST/T000694/1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    C. P. Burgess

  2. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    C. P. Burgess

  3. CERN, Theoretical Physics Department, Genève 23, Switzerland

    Gongjun Choi

  4. DAMTP, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, UK

    F. Quevedo

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  1. C. P. Burgess
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  2. Gongjun Choi
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  3. F. Quevedo
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Correspondence to Gongjun Choi.

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Burgess, C.P., Choi, G. & Quevedo, F. UV and IR effects in axion quality control. J. High Energ. Phys. 2024, 51 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2024)051

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  • Received: 12 January 2024

  • Accepted: 18 February 2024

  • Published: 08 March 2024

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2024)051

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Keywords

  • Axions and ALPs
  • Gauge Symmetry
  • Global Symmetries
  • Higher Spin Symmetry
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