Abstract: The plethora of increasingly precise experiments which hunt for axion-like particles (ALPs), as well as their widely different energy reach, call for the theoretical understanding of ALP couplings at loop-level. We derive the one-loop contributions to ALP-SM effective couplings, including finite corrections. The complete leading-order – dimension five – effective linear Lagrangian is considered. The ALP is left off-shell, which is of particular impact on LHC and accelerator searches of ALP couplings to gamma gamma, ZZ, WW, Z gamma gluons and fermions. All results are obtained in the covariant Rg gauge. A few phenomenological consequences are also explored as illustration, with flavour diagonal channels in the case of fermions: in particular, we explore constraints on the coupling of the ALP to top quarks, that can be extracted from LHC data, from astrophysical sources and from Dark Matter direct detection experiments such as PandaX, LUX and XENONIT. Furthermore, we clarify the relation between alternative ALP bases, the role of gauge anomalous couplings and their interface with chirality-conserving and chirality-flip fermion interactions, and we briefly discuss renormalization group aspects.

Abstract: In the context of lepton flavor universality violation (LFUV) studies, we fully derive a general tensor formalism to investigate the role that left- and right-handed neutrino new-physics (NP) terms may have in b -> c tau(nu) over bar (tau) transitions. We present, for several extensions of the Standard Model (SM), numerical results for the Lambda(b) -> Lambda(c)tau(nu) over bar (tau) semileptonic decay, which is expected to be measured with precision at the LHCb. This reaction can be a new source of experimental information that can help to confirm, or maybe rule out, LFUV presently seen in (B) over bar meson decays. The present study analyzes observables that can help in distinguishing between different NP scenarios that otherwise provide very similar results for the branching ratios, which are our currently best hints for LFUV. Since the tau lepton is very short-lived, we consider three subsequent tau-decay modes, two hadronic pi nu(tau) and rho nu(tau) and one leptonic mu(nu) over bar (mu)nu(tau), which have been previously studied for (B) over bar -> D(*) decays. Within the tensor formalism that we have developed in previous works, we re-obtain the expressions for the differential decay width written in terms of visible (experimentally accessible) variables of the massive particle created in the tau decay. There are seven different tau angular and spin asymmetries that are defined in this way and that can be extracted from experiment. Those asymmetries provide observables that can help in constraining possible SM extensions.

Abstract: In addition to spectacular signatures such as black hole superradiance and the rotation of CMB polarization, the plenitude of axions appearing in the string axiverse may have potentially dangerous implications. An example is the cosmological overproduction of relic axions and moduli by the misalignment mechanism, more pronounced in regions where the signals mentioned above may be observable, that is for large axion decay constant. In this work, we study the minimal requirements to soften this problem and show that the fundamental requirement is a long period of low-scale inflation. However, in this case, if the inflationary Hubble scale is lower than around O(100) eV, no relic DM axion is produced in the early Universe. Cosmological production of some axions may be activated, via the misalignment mechanism, if their potential minimum changes between inflation and today. As a particular example, we study in detail how the maximal-misalignment mechanism dilutes the effect of dangerous axions and allows the production of axion DM in a controlled way. In this case, the potential of the axion that realises the mechanism shifts by a factor increment theta = pi between the inflationary epoch and today, and the axion starts to oscillate from the top of its potential. We also show that axions with masses m(a) similar to O(1 – 100) H-0 realising the maximal-misalignment mechanism generically behave as dark energy with a decay constant that can take values well below the Planck scale, avoiding problems associated to super-Planckian scales. Finally, we briefly study the basic phenomenological implications of the mechanism and comment on the compatibility of this type of maximally-misaligned quintessence with the swampland criteria.