Axino dark matter from thermal production

We study the possibility of mixed dark matter obtained through the phase space distribution of a single particle. An example is offered in the context of SUSY models with a Peccei-Quinn symmetry. Axinos in the 100 keV range can naturally have both thermal and non-thermal components. The latter one arises from the lightest neutralino decays and derelativizes at z ~ 10^4.

After a period of inflationary expansion, the Universe reheated and reached full thermal equilibrium at the reheating temperature T_R. In this work we point out that, in the context of effective low-energy supersymmetric models, LHC measurements may allow one to determine T_R as a function of the mass of the dark matter particle assumed to be either an axino or a gravitino. An upper bound on their mass may also be derived.

We discuss the thermal production of axions in renormalizable models involving two Higgs doublet fields and a complex singlet field with a global $U(1)$ Peccei-Quinn symmetry, i.e., DFSZ type axion models. We demonstrate that, when the reheating temperature exceeds the mass scale of heavy Higgs bosons, axions are efficiently produced through heavy Higgs boson decays and scatterings at temperatures comparable to the heavy Higgs boson mass scale. As a result, the abundance of t...

The axino and the gravitino are extremely weakly interacting candidates for the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). We demonstrate that either of them could provide the right amount of cold dark matter. Assuming that a charged slepton is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP), we discuss how NLSP decays into the axino/gravitino LSP can provide evidence for axino/gravitino dark matter at future colliders. We show that these NLSP decays will allow us to estimat...

The existence of dark matter provides strong evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model. Extending the Standard Model with the Peccei-Quinn symmetry and/or supersymmetry, compelling dark matter candidates appear. For the axion, the neutralino, the gravitino, and the axino, I review primordial production mechanisms, cosmological and astrophysical constraints, experimental searches, and prospects for experimental identification.

The recent observations imply that there is an extra relativistic degree of freedom coined dark radiation. We argue that the QCD axion is a plausible candidate for the dark radiation, not only because of its extremely small mass, but also because in the supersymmetric extension of the Peccei-Quinn mechanism the saxion tends to dominate the Universe and decays into axions with a sizable branching fraction. We show that the Higgsino mixing parameter mu is bounded from above whe...

We investigate the possibility that the Peccei-Quinn phase transition occurs at a temperature far below the symmetry breaking scale. Low phase transition temperatures are typical in supersymmetric theories, where symmetry breaking fields have small masses. We find that QCD axions are abundantly produced just after the phase transition. The observed dark matter abundance is reproduced even if the decay constant is much lower than $10^{11}$ GeV. The produced axions tend to be w...

We reconsider thermal production of axions in the early universe, including axion couplings to all Standard Model (SM) particles. Concerning the axion coupling to gluons, we find that thermal effects enhance the axion production rate by a factor of few with respect to previous computations performed in the limit of small strong gauge coupling. Furthermore, we find that the top Yukawa coupling induces a much larger axion production rate, unless the axion couples to SM particle...

I discuss the essential features of the QCD axion: the strong CP solution and hence its theoretical necessity. I also review the axion and axino effects on astrophysics and cosmology, in particular with emphasis on their role in the dark matter component in the universe.

The axino, the fermionic superpartner of the axion, is a well-motivated candidate for cold dark matter if it is the lightest supersymmetric particle. Since the axino couples very weakly to the matter multiplets, the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) has a long lifetime, which has important consequences for both cosmology and collider phenomenology. Assuming that a charged slepton is the NLSP, we calculate the complete leading one- and two-loop contributions to i...