Electroweak Instantons, Axions, and the Cosmological Constant

Abstract

If there is explicit violation of baryon plus lepton number at some energy scale, then the electroweak theory depends upon a θ-angle. Due to a singular integration over small scale size instantons, this θ-dependence is sensitive to very high momentum scales. Assuming that there is no new physics between the electroweak and Planck scales, for an electroweak axion the energy difference between the vacuum at θ /= 0, and that at θ = 0, is of the correct order of magnitude to be the dark energy observed in the present epoch.

6 pages, 1 figure; N_h is corrected; minor corrections in the text

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• On String Theory Expectations for Photon Couplings to Axion-Like Particles
• Quintessence Axion Revisited in Light of Swampland Conjectures
• The Electroweak Vacuum Angle
• Vacuum energy and the cosmological constant
• Consistency of the string inspired electroweak axion with cosmic birefringence
• Is $N=2$ Large?
• The anomalous shift of the weak boson mass and the quintessence electroweak axion
• The Electroweak Axion, Dark Energy, Inflation and Baryonic Matter
• The Electroweak Vacuum Angle at Finite Temperature and Implications for Baryogenesis