Axino dark matter from thermal production

We review the status of axino dark matter. Two hierarchy problems, the strong CP problem and the gauge hierarchy problem, have led to introducing into particle physics a spontaneously broken global Peccei-Quinn symmetry and a softly broken supersymmetry, respectively. Combining them implies the presence of not only an axion, but also of its scalar component, saxion, and their fermionic partner, axino. Among these, the axion and the axino are attractive dark matter candidates....

The identification of dark matter in our particle physics model is still a very open question. Here we will argue that axinos can be successful dark matter candidates in models with supersymmetry and the axion solution of the strong CP problem. Axinos can be the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), or can be heavier than the LSP. Axinos can be produced in the right abundance by thermal scatterings and if they are the LSP also by out of equilibrium decays of the lightest su...

We evaluate the gravitino production rate in supersymmetric QCD at high temperature to leading order in the gauge coupling. The result, which is obtained by using the resummed gluon propagator, depends logarithmically on the gluon plasma mass. As a byproduct, a new result for the axion production rate in a QED plasma is obtained. The implicatons for the cosmological dark matter problem are briefly discussed, in particular the intriguing possibility that gravitinos are the dom...

The possibility of the CDM axino is presented. From the early days of supersymmetry, axino has been considered as hot dark matter and warm dark matter. But the CDM axino has been considered quite recently. It is because the low reheating temperature of the universe is gaining momentum recently from various considerations in particle cosmology. I present a general introduction on the CDM's, in particular the axino, the calculation on the axino density in the universe, and the ...

We discuss the effective interactions of axion supermultiplet, which might be important for analyzing the cosmological aspect of supersymmetric axion model. Related to axino cosmology, it is stressed that three seemingly similar but basically different quantities, the Wilsonian axino-gluino-gluon coupling, the 1PI axino-gluino-gluon amplitude, and the PQ anomaly coefficient, should be carefully distinguished from each other for correct analysis of the thermal production of ax...

In a previous paper, we proposed a simple extension of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model which gives rise to thermal inflation and baryogenesis in a natural and remarkably consistent way. In this paper, we consider the $\lambda_\phi = 0$ special case of our model, which is the minimal way to incorporate a Peccei-Quinn symmetry. The axino/flatino becomes the lightest supersymmetric particle with $m_\axino \sim 1$ to $10 \GeV$ and is typically over-produced during the f...

We discuss certain features of the low energy effective interactions of axion supermultiplet, which are relevant for axino cosmology, and examine the implication to thermal production of axino in the early Universe.

We calculate the rate for thermal production of axions and saxions via scattering of quarks, gluons, squarks, and gluinos in the primordial supersymmetric plasma. Systematic field theoretical methods such as hard thermal loop resummation are applied to obtain a finite result in a gauge-invariant way that is consistent to leading order in the strong gauge coupling. We calculate the thermally produced yield and the decoupling temperature for both axions and saxions. For the gen...

We revisit the cosmology of the supersymmetric QCD axion, highlighting the existence of a serious cosmological axino problem that is fully analogous to the gravitino problem of overclosure via thermal production. A general analysis implies that the QCD axino has a mass greater than or equal to that of the gravitino in the absence of unnatural fine-tuning or sequestering. As a consequence, bounds from thermal gravitino and QCD axino production are complementary in parameter sp...

The axion not only solves the strong CP puzzle, but it also may be the main constituent of cold dark matter. We review the axion dark matter predictions for the case that the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is restored after inflation.