Planck-Scale Effects on Global Symmetries: Cosmology of Pseudo-Goldstone Bosons

The PLANCK observation strengthens the argument that the observed acceleration of the Universe is dominated by the invisible component of dark energy. We address how this extremely small DE density can be obtained in an ultraviolet completed theory. From two mass scales, the grand unification scale M_G and the Higgs boson mass, we parametrize this dark energy(DE). To naturally generate an extremely small DE term, we introduce an almost flat DE potential of a pseudo-Goldstone ...

We generalize the standard model of particle physics such it displays global scale invariance. The gravitational action is also suitably modified such that it respects this symmetry. This model is interesting since the cosmological constant term is absent in the action. We find that the scale symmetry is broken by the recently introduced cosmological symmetry breaking mechanism. This simultaneously generates all the dimensionful parameters such as the Newton's gravitational c...

The energy density of the universe today may be dominated by the vacuum energy of a slowly rolling scalar field. Making a quantum expansion around such a time dependent solution is found to break fundamental symmetries of quantum field theory. We call this mechanism cosmological symmetry breaking and argue that it is different from the standard phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking. We illustrate this with a toy scalar field theory, whose action displays a U(1) symmetry...

We outline a scenario where both the Higgs and a complex scalar dark matter candidate arise as the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons of breaking a global $SO(7)$ symmetry to $SO(6)$. The novelty of our construction is that the symmetry partners of the Standard Model top-quark are charged under a hidden color group and not the usual $SU(3)_c$. Consequently, the scale of spontaneous symmetry breaking and the masses of the top partners can be significantly lower than those with colo...

We explore the cosmological implications of an ultra-light pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson. With global spontaneous symmetry breaking scale $f \simeq 10^{18}$ GeV and explicit breaking scale comparable to MSW neutrino masses, $M \sim 10^{-3}$ eV, such a field, which acquires a mass $m_\phi \sim M^2/f \sim H_0$, would have become dynamical at recent epochs and currently dominate the energy density of the universe. The field acts as an effective cosmological constant for several e...

Pseudo-Goldstone dark matter is a thermal relic with momentum-suppressed direct-detection cross section. We study the most general model of pseudo-Goldstone dark matter arising from the complex-singlet extension of the Standard Model. The new U(1) symmetry of the model is explicitly broken down to a CP-like symmetry stabilising dark matter. We study the interplay of direct-detection constraints with the strength of cosmic phase transitions and possible gravitational-wave sign...

In this work, we revisit pseudo Nambu Goldstone boson (pNGB) DM model where global $U(1)$ dark symmetry is spontaneously broken as well as explicitly with broken by with linear symmetry breaking, focusing on the dark matter mass range in $500 {\rm GeV} \lesssim m_{\rm DM} \lesssim O(10)$ TeV. This model is interesting not only in its own in the context of pNGB DM, but also in the context of cosmological collider signatures from heavy particle mass regime without Boltzmann sup...

We consider inflation within a model framework where the Higgs boson arises as a pseudo-Goldstone boson associated with the breaking of a global symmetry at a scale significantly larger than the electroweak one. We show that in such a model the scalar self-couplings can be parametrically suppressed and, consequently, the non-minimal couplings to gravity can be of order one or less, while the inflationary predictions of the model remain compatible with the precision cosmologic...

We study the case of a pseudo-scalar dark matter candidate which emerges from a complex scalar singlet, charged under a global U(1) symmetry, which is broken both explicitly and spontaneously. The pseudo-scalar is naturally stabilized by the presence of a remnant discrete symmetry: dark CP. We study and compare the phenomenology of several simplified models with only one explicit symmetry breaking term. We find that several regions of the parameter space are able to reproduce...

We investigate a model where the dark matter particle is a chiral fermion field charged under a global $U(1)$ symmetry which is assumed to be spontaneously broken, leading to a pseudo-Goldstone boson (PGB). We argue that the dark matter annihilation into PGBs determine the dark matter relic abundance. Besides, we also note that experimental searches for PGBs allow either for a very long lived PGB, with a lifetime much longer than the age of the Universe, or a relatively short...