Abstract: Models that produce axionlike particles (ALPs) after cosmological inflation due to spontaneous U(1) symmetry breaking also produce cosmic-string networks. Those axionic strings lose energy through gravitational-wave emission during the whole cosmological history, generating a stochastic background of gravitational waves that spans many decades in frequency. We can therefore constrain the axion decay constant and axion mass from limits on the gravitational-wave spectrum and compatibility with dark matter abundance as well as dark radiation. We derive such limits from analyzing the most recent NANOGrav data from pulsar timing arrays (PTAs). The limits are similar to the Neff bounds on dark radiation for ALP masses ma less than or similar to 10-22 eV. On the other hand, for heavy ALPs with ma greater than or similar to 0.1 GeV and NDW not equal 1, new regions of parameter space can be probed by PTA data due to the dominant domain-wall contribution to the gravitational-wave background.

Abstract: We study the molecular probability of the X(3872) in the D0 over bar D*0 and D+D*- channels in several scenarios. One of them assumes that the state is purely due to a genuine nonmolecular component. However, it gets unavoidably dressed by the meson components to the point that in the limit of zero binding of the D0 over bar D*0 component becomes purely molecular. Yet, the small but finite binding allows for a nonmolecular state when the bare mass of the genuine state approaches the D0 over bar D*0 threshold, but, in this case the system develops a small scattering length and a huge effective range for this channel in flagrant disagreement with present values of these magnitudes. Next we discuss the possibility to have hybrid states stemming from the combined effect of a genuine state and a reasonable direct interaction between the meson components, where we find cases in which the scattering length and effective range are still compatible with data, but even then the molecular probability is as big as 95%. Finally, we perform the calculations when the binding stems purely from the direct interaction between the meson-meson components. In summary we conclude, that while present data definitely rule out the possibility of a dominant nonmolecular component, the precise value of the molecular probability requires a more precise determination of the scattering length and effective range of the D0 over bar D*0 channel, as well as the measurement of these magnitudes for the D+D*- channel which have not been determined experimentally so far.

Abstract: This work investigates the implications of very special relativity (VSR) on the calculation of vacuum polarization for fermions in the presence of Maxwell and Kalb-Ramond gauge fields in four-dimensional spacetime. We derive the SIM(2)-covariant gauge theory associated with an Abelian antisymmetric twotensor and its corresponding field strength. We demonstrate that the free VSR-Kalb-Ramond electrodynamics is equivalent to a massive scalar field with a single polarization. Furthermore, we determine an explicit expression for the effective action involving Maxwell and Kalb-Ramond fields due to fermionic vacuum polarization at one-loop order. The quantum corrections generate divergences free of nonlocal terms only in the VSR-Maxwell sector. At the same time, we observe UV/IR mixing divergences due to the entanglement of VSR-nonlocal effects with quantum higher-derivative terms for the Kalb-Ramond field. However, in the lower energy limit, the effective action can be renormalized like in the Lorentz invariant case.