QCD Axion Window and False Vacuum Higgs Inflation

Abstract

The abundance of the QCD axion is known to be suppressed if the Hubble parameter during inflation, $H_{\inf }$, is lower than the QCD scale, and if the inflation lasts sufficiently long. We show that the tight upper bound on the inflation scale can be significantly relaxed if the eternal old inflation is driven by the standard-model Higgs field trapped in a false vacuum at large field values. Specifically, $H_{\inf }$ can be larger than $100$GeV if the false vacuum is located above the intermediate scale. We also discuss the slow-roll inflation after the tunneling from the false vacuum to the electroweak vacuum.

31 pages, 4 figures

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• The QCD Axion: A Unique Player in the Axiverse with Mixings
• Small cosmological constant from a peculiar inflaton potential
• The Stochastic Relaxion
• Mean field squared and energy-momentum tensor for the hyperbolic vacuum in dS spacetime
• Removing the Cosmological Bound on the Axion Scale in the KSVZ and DFSZ Models
• Hidden Photon and Axion Dark Matter from Symmetry Breaking
• Gauge coupling jump and small instantons from a large non-minimal coupling