Breakdown of Chiral Perturbation Theory for the Axion Hot Dark Matter Bound

We show that the commonly adopted hot dark matter bound on the axion mass m a ≲ 1     eV is not reliable, since it is obtained by extrapolating the chiral expansion in a region where the effective field theory breaks down. This is explicitly shown via the calculation of the axion-pion thermalization...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2021-06, Vol.126 (24), p.1-241801, Article 241801
Main Authors: Di Luzio, Luca, Martinelli, Guido, Piazza, Gioacchino
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astrophysics
Chiral dynamics
Dark matter
Field theory
High Energy Physics - Lattice
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Perturbation theory
Physics
Pions
Quantum chromodynamics
Thermalization (energy absorption)
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Summary:We show that the commonly adopted hot dark matter bound on the axion mass m a ≲ 1     eV is not reliable, since it is obtained by extrapolating the chiral expansion in a region where the effective field theory breaks down. This is explicitly shown via the calculation of the axion-pion thermalization rate at the next-to-leading order in chiral perturbation theory. We finally advocate a strategy for a sound extraction of the axion hot dark matter bound via lattice QCD techniques.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.241801