Abstract: The QCD axion is one of the best motivated dark matter candidates. The misalignment mechanism is well known to produce an abundance of the QCD axion consistent with dark matter for an axion decay constant of order 10(12) GeV. For a smaller decay constant, the QCD axion, with Peccei-Quinn symmetry broken during inflation, makes up only a fraction of dark matter unless the axion field starts oscillating very close to the top of its potential, in a scenario called “large-misalignment”. In this scenario, QCD axion dark matter with a small axion decay constant is partially comprised of very dense structures. We present a simple dynamical model realising the large-misalignment mechanism. During inflation, the axion classically rolls down its potential approaching its minimum. After inflation, the Universe reheats to a high temperature and a modulus (real scalar field) changes the sign of its minimum dynamically, which changes the sign of the mass of a vector-like fermion charged under QCD. As a result, the minimum of the axion potential during inflation becomes the maximum of the potential after the Universe has cooled through the QCD phase transition and the axion starts oscillating. In this model, we can produce QCD axion dark matter with a decay constant as low as 6 x 10(9) GeV and an axion mass up to 1 meV. We also summarise the phenomenological implications of this mechanism for dark matter experiments and colliders.

Abstract: In light of the improved sensitivities of cosmological observations, we examine the status of quasi-degenerate neutrino mass scenarios. Within the simplest extension of the standard cosmological model with massive neutrinos, we find that quasi-degenerate neutrinos are severely constrained by present cosmological data and neutrino oscillation experiments. We find that Planck 2018 observations of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies disfavour quasi-degenerate neutrino masses at 2.4 Gaussian sigma 's, while adding baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data brings the rejection to 5.9 sigma 's. The highest statistical significance with which one would be able to rule out quasi-degeneracy would arise if the sum of neutrino masses is Sigma m(v) = 60 meV (the minimum allowed by neutrino oscillation experiments); indeed a sensitivity of 15 meV, as expected from a combination of future cosmological probes, would further improve the rejection level up to 17 sigma. We discuss the robustness of these projections with respect to assumptions on the underlying cosmological model, and also compare them with bounds from beta decay endpoint and neutrinoless double beta decay studies.

Abstract: Sterile neutrinos with a mass in the eV range have been invoked as a possible explanation of a variety of short baseline (SBL) neutrino oscillation anomalies. However, if one considers neutrino oscillations between active and sterile neutrinos, such neutrinos would have been fully thermalised in the early universe, and would be therefore in strong conflict with cosmological bounds. In this study we first update cosmological bounds on the mass and energy density of eV-scale sterile neutrinos. We then perform an updated study of a previously proposed model in which the sterile neutrino couples to a new light pseudoscalar degree of freedom. Consistently with previous analyses, we find that the model provides a good fit to all cosmological data and allows the high value of H-0 measured in the local universe to be consistent with measurements of the cosmic microwave background. However, new high l polarisation data constrain the sterile neutrino mass to be less than approximately 1 eV in this scenario. Finally, we combine the cosmological bounds on the pseudoscalar model with a Bayesian inference analysis of SBL data and conclude that only a sterile mass in narrow ranges around 1 eV remains consistent with both cosmology and SBL data.

Abstract: Motivated by the recent XENON1T results, we explore various new physics models that can be discovered through searches for electron recoils in O(keV)-threshold direct-detection experiments. First, we consider the absorption of axion-like particles, dark photons, and scalars, either as dark matter relics or being produced directly in the Sun. In the latter case, we find that keV mass bosons produced in the Sun provide an adequate fit to the data but are excluded by stellar cooling constraints. We address this tension by introducing a novel Chameleon-like axion model, which can explain the excess while evading the stellar bounds. We find that absorption of bosonic dark matter provides a viable explanation for the excess only if the dark matter is a dark photon or an axion. In the latter case, photophobic axion couplings are necessary to avoid X-ray constraints. Second, we analyze models of dark matter-electron scattering to determine which models might explain the excess. Standard scattering of dark matter with electrons is generically in conflict with data from lower-threshold experiments. Momentum-dependent interactions with a heavy mediator can fit the data with dark matter mass heavier than a GeV but are generically in tension with collider constraints. Next, we consider dark matter consisting of two (or more) states that have a small mass splitting. The exothermic (down)scattering of the heavier state to the lighter state can fit the data for keV mass splittings. Finally, we consider a subcomponent of dark matter that is accelerated by scattering off cosmic rays, finding that dark matter interacting though an O(100 keV)-mass mediator can fit the data. The cross sections required in this scenario are, however, typically challenged by complementary probes of the light mediator. Throughout our study, we implement an unbinned Monte Carlo analysis and use an improved energy reconstruction of the XENON1T events.

Abstract: We study the possibility that Dark Matter (DM) is made of Feebly Interacting Massive Particles (FIMP) interacting just gravitationally with the Standard Model particles in the framework of a Clockwork/Linear Dilaton (CW/LD) model. We restrict here to the case in which the DM particles are scalar fields. This paper extends our previous study of FIMP's in Randall-Sundrum (RS) warped extra-dimensions. As it was the case in the RS scenario, also in the CW/LD model we find a significant region of the parameter space in which the observed DM relic abundance can be reproduced with scalar DM mass in the MeV range, with a reheating temperature varying from 10 GeV to 10(9) GeV. We comment on the similarities of the results in both extra-dimensional models.