Dimensionless constants, cosmology and other dark matters

Abstract

We identify 31 dimensionless physical constants required by particle physics and cosmology, and emphasize that both microphysical constraints and selection effects might help elucidate their origin. Axion cosmology provides an instructive example, in which these two kinds of arguments must both be taken into account, and work well together. If a Peccei-Quinn phase transition occurred before or during inflation, then the axion dark matter density will vary from place to place with a probability distribution. By calculating the net dark matter halo formation rate as a function of all four relevant cosmological parameters and assessing other constraints, we find that this probability distribution, computed at stable solar systems, is arguably peaked near the observed dark matter density. If cosmologically relevant WIMP dark matter is discovered, then one naturally expects comparable densities of WIMPs and axions, making it important to follow up with precision measurements to determine whether WIMPs account for all of the dark matter or merely part of it.

29 pages, 13 figs, minor mods to match published PRD version

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• From the Big Bang Theory to the Theory of a Stationary Universe
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• Counting Flux Vacua
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• Why the Universe is Just So
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• Saltatory Relaxation of the Cosmological Constant
• The Chemistry of the Early Universe
• Fluctuations of the Gravitational Constant in the Inflationary Brans-Dicke Cosmology
• Why is the CMB fluctuation level 10^{-5}?
• Is "the theory of everything'' merely the ultimate ensemble theory?
• The Cosmology of String Theoretic Axions
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• The cosmological constant and the time of its dominance
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• Anthropic considerations in multiple domain theories and the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking
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• Nonperturbative Amplifications of Inhomogeneities in a Self-Reproducing Universe
• Anthropic Distribution for Cosmological Constant and Primordial Density Perturbations
• Anthropic predictions for neutrino masses
• Dark Matter and The Anthropic Principle
• Climatic and Biogeochemical Effects of a Galactic Gamma-Ray Burst
• The Triple-Alpha Process and the Anthropically Allowed Values of the Weak Scale
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Cited by in corpus (247)

• Axion Cosmology
• String Axiverse
• Dark Matter Candidates from Particle Physics and Methods of Detection
• Cosmological Constraints from the SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies
• A History of Dark Matter
• Cosmology and Fundamental Physics with the Euclid Satellite
• Cosmology and fundamental physics with the Euclid satellite
• New experimental approaches in the search for axion-like particles
• Varying constants, Gravitation and Cosmology
• Exploring the String Axiverse with Precision Black Hole Physics
• The Well-Tempered Neutralino
• Inflationary Cosmology
• The Mathematical Universe
• Why does deep and cheap learning work so well?
• Dark Light, Dark Matter and the Misalignment Mechanism
• Dark matter production in the early Universe: beyond the thermal WIMP paradigm
• Axions as Dark Matter Particles
• First Results from ABRACADABRA-10 cm: A Search for Sub-$\mu$eV Axion Dark Matter
• Axion Cosmology and the Energy Scale of Inflation
• A Model For Halo Formation With Axion Mixed Dark Matter
• Sinks in the Landscape, Boltzmann Brains, and the Cosmological Constant Problem
• Natural Dark Matter from an Unnatural Higgs Boson and New Colored Particles at the TeV Scale
• Ultra-Light Scalar Fields and the Growth of Structure in the Universe
• The Stochastic Axion Scenario
• The search for low-mass axion dark matter with ABRACADABRA-10cm
• The QCD Axion Window and Low Scale Inflation
• The Cosmological Constant and the String Landscape
• Update of axion CDM energy density
• Why the cosmological constant is small and positive
• Rotation of Linear Polarization Plane and Circular Polarization from Cosmological Pseudoscalar Fields
• Spread Supersymmetry with Wino LSP: Gluino and Dark Matter Signals
• Dark Matter Candidates - Axions, Neutralinos, Gravitinos, and Axinos
• Isocurvature bounds on axions revisited
• Theory and Phenomenology of Planckian Interacting Massive Particles as Dark Matter
• Cosmological window onto the string axiverse and the supersymmetry breaking scale
• Predicting the Cosmological Constant from the Causal Entropic Principle
• Higgsino Dark Matter in High-Scale Supersymmetry
• A Finely-Predicted Higgs Boson Mass from A Finely-Tuned Weak Scale
• Opening up the QCD axion window
• Inflating in a Better Racetrack
• Predicting the cosmological constant with the scale-factor cutoff measure
• Inflation, dark matter and dark energy in the string landscape
• Axion cold dark matter in view of BICEP2 results
• Axion Searches with Microwave Filters: the RADES project
• Life at the Interface of Particle Physics and String Theory
• A Universe Without Weak Interactions
• Projected Sensitivity of DMRadio-m${}^3$: A Search for the QCD Axion Below $1\mu$eV
• A-term inflation and the MSSM
• Axion Quasiparticles for Axion Dark Matter Detection
• Is Our Universe Natural?
• Non-gaussianity and cosmic uncertainty in curvaton-type models
• Strong moduli stabilization and phenomenology
• Populating the Landscape: A Top Down Approach
• Hurdles for Recent Measures in Eternal Inflation
• Probing the Early Universe with Axion Physics and Gravitational Waves
• Looking at the NANOGrav Signal Through the Anthropic Window of Axion-Like Particles
• Evidence for the Multiverse in the Standard Model and Beyond
• How many universes are in the multiverse?
• Inflation after False Vacuum Decay: Observational Prospects after Planck
• Stars In Other Universes: Stellar structure with different fundamental constants
• Prediction and explanation in the multiverse
• The Beginning and the End: The Meaning of Life in a Cosmological Perspective
• A New Solution of The Cosmological Constant Problems
• Midi-review: Status of weak scale supersymmetry after LHC Run 2 and ton-scale noble liquid WIMP searches
• Dynamics of the Peccei Quinn Scale
• Axion Miniclusters in Modified Cosmological Histories
• Inflatable Dark Matter
• Quality of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry in the Aligned QCD Axion and Cosmological Implications
• Introducing DMRadio-GUT, a search for GUT-scale QCD axions
• Isocurvature forecast in the anthropic axion window
• Multiverse Understanding of Cosmological Coincidences
• QCD Axion on Hilltop by a Phase Shift of $\pi$
• Light axion-like dark matter must be present during inflation
• Fuzzy Dark Matter and the Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Data
• Generating the Observed Baryon Asymmetry from the Inflaton Field
• Design and Implementation of the ABRACADABRA-10 cm Axion Dark Matter Search
• A measure of the multiverse
• Ultra-light Axions: Degeneracies with Massive Neutrinos and Forecasts for Future Cosmological Observations
• Axion Isocurvature and Magnetic Monopoles
• Merger of Dark Matter Axion Clumps and Resonant Photon Emission
• The Degree of Fine-Tuning in our Universe -- and Others
• The Weak Scale from BBN
• Bose-Einstein condensation of relativistic Scalar Field Dark Matter
• String compactification, QCD axion and axion-photon-photon coupling
• Hunting for super-heavy dark matter with the highest-energy cosmic rays
• Is the evidence for dark energy secure?
• Moduli dark matter and the search for its decay line using Suzaku X-ray telescope
• Anthropic Explanation of the Dark Matter Abundance
• The Axiverse Extended: Vacuum Destabilisation, Early Dark Energy and Cosmological Collapse
• The topological susceptibility from grand canonical simulations in the interacting instanton liquid model: chiral phase transition and axion mass
• A Testable Solution of the Cosmological Constant and Coincidence Problems
• How unitary cosmology generalizes thermodynamics and solves the inflationary entropy problem
• Testing anthropic predictions for Lambda and the CMB temperature
• Starbursts in low-mass haloes at Cosmic Dawn. I. The critical halo mass for star formation
• Fuzzy Dark Matter at Cosmic Dawn: New 21-cm Constraints
• Peccei-Quinn Symmetry from Dynamical Supersymmetry Breaking
• Landscape Predictions for the Higgs Boson and Top Quark Masses
• Neutralino Dark Matter in Scenarios with Early Matter Domination
• The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe
• Axion mass prediction from minimal grand unification
• R-symmetric High Scale Supersymmetry
• The clock ambiguity and the emergence of physical laws
• A sharp 141 GeV Higgs prediction from environmental selection
• Predictions from Star Formation in the Multiverse
• Grand Unification, Axion, and Inflation in Intermediate Scale Supersymmetry
• The Fundamental Need for a SM Higgs and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
• The swampland conjecture and the Higgs expectation value
• Exploring the astrophysics of dark atoms
• Dark Grand Unification in the Axiverse: Decaying Axion Dark Matter and Spontaneous Baryogenesis
• Quantum Science and the Search for Axion Dark Matter
• Higgs Parity, Strong CP, and Dark Matter
• Nuclear Astrophysics of Worlds in the String Landscape
• Signatures of clumpy dark matter in the global 21 cm background signal
• Axions in Gauge Mediation
• Radio signatures from encounters between Neutron Stars and QCD-Axion Minihalos around Primordial Black Holes
• Why anthropic reasoning cannot predict Lambda
• The distribution of Omega_k from the scale-factor cutoff measure
• AdS-phobia, the WGC, the Standard Model and Supersymmetry
• Supersymmetry from Typicality
• Measures on transitions for cosmology from eternal inflation
• Possible evidence of QCD axion stars in HSC and OGLE microlensing events
• Dark Matter in the Standard Model?
• Planets in Other Universes: Habitability constraints on density fluctuations and galactic structure
• The scale of gravity and the cosmological constant within a landscape
• GUTzilla Dark Matter
• Predictions of the causal entropic principle for environmental conditions of the universe
• Axions, Inflation and the Anthropic Principle
• Prediction and typicality in multiverse cosmology
• Microlensing constraints on axion stars including finite lens and source size effects
• Why Comparable? A Multiverse Explanation of the Dark Matter-Baryon Coincidence
• Why is the Supersymmetry Breaking Scale Unnaturally High?
• Bayesian evidence for the prevalence of waterworlds
• Dilaton as a Dark Matter Candidate and its Detection
• Signatures of photon and axion-like particle mixing in the gamma-ray burst jet
• Constraints on Alternate Universes: Stars and habitable planets with different fundamental constants
• Star Formation in the Multiverse
• Negative vacuum energy densities and the causal diamond measure
• Anthropic Bounds on Lambda from the No-Boundary Quantum State
• The Stochastic Axiverse
• Taming the Runaway Problem of Inflationary Landscapes
• Cosmological Problems with Multiple Axion-like Fields
• Galaxy Formation Efficiency and the Multiverse Explanation of the Cosmological Constant with EAGLE Simulations
• Axion Isocurvature Perturbations in Low-Scale Models of Hybrid Inflation
• Probabilities in the landscape
• Hypercharged Dark Matter and Direct Detection as a Probe of Reheating
• Do we need fine-tuning to create primordial black holes?
• QCD Axion Window and False Vacuum Higgs Inflation
• Observational prospects of self-interacting scalar superradiance with next-generation gravitational-wave detectors
• Dynamical axion misalignment with small instantons
• Several Problems in Particle Physics and Cosmology Solved in One SMASH
• Anticipating a New Golden Age
• Some Remarks on Anthropic Approaches to the Strong CP Problem
• Snowmass-2013 Cosmic Frontier 3 (CF3) Working Group Summary: Non-WIMP dark matter
• The Cosmological Constant in the Quantum Multiverse
• Cosmic explosions, life in the Universe and the Cosmological Constant
• Computational and Biological Analogies for Understanding Fine-Tuned Parameters in Physics
• An Observational Test for the Anthropic Origin of the Cosmological Constant
• On the Habitability of Universes without Stable Deuterium
• Environmentally Selected WIMP Dark Matter with High-Scale Supersymmetry Breaking
• The cosmological moduli problem and naturalness
• Altered Axion Abundance from a Dynamical Peccei-Quinn Scale
• Why three generations?
• Baryogenesis via Mesino Oscillations
• Axiogenesis with a Heavy QCD Axion
• Scalar potentials out of canonical quantum cosmology
• Direct Search for Dark Matter - Striking the Balance - and the Future
• Sensitivity of Carbon and Oxygen Yields to the Triple-Alpha Resonance in Massive Stars
• What kind of science is cosmology?
• Dark Matter and Naturalness
• Electroweak Instantons, Axions, and the Cosmological Constant
• Gauging Fine-Tuning
• Measures on Mixing Angles
• Binding the Diproton in Stars: Anthropic Limits on the Strength of Gravity
• Supersymmetric Majorana Quantum Cosmologies
• Inflaxion Dark Matter
• Dimensionless cosmology
• Assessing, testing and estimating the amount of fine-tuning by means of active information
• Inhomogeneous compact extra dimensions and de Sitter cosmology
• Is Cosmological Tuning Fine or Coarse?
• On the wall velocity dependence of electroweak baryogenesis
• Multiverse Predictions for Habitability: Number of Potentially Habitable Planets
• Cosmological limits on axions and axion-like particles
• Stellar Helium Burning in Other Universes: A solution to the triple alpha fine-tuning problem
• Relating leptogenesis and dark matter
• Universes without the Weak Force: Astrophysical Processes with Stable Neutrons
• A Stable Proton without R-Parity--Implications for the LSP--
• Dark matter and dark radiation from the early universe with a modulus coupled to the PQMSSM
• Cosmological Selection of Multi-TeV Supersymmetry
• Minimal solution to the axion isocurvature problem from a nonminimal coupling
• The Size Distribution of Inhabited Planets
• Inflation in Random Landscapes with two energy scales
• Radiative Corrections to Aid the Direct Detection of the Higgsino-like Neutralino Dark Matter: Spin-Independent Interactions
• Radiative PQ Breaking and the Higgs Boson Mass
• Is the magnitude of the Peccei-Quinn scale set by the landscape?
• Multiversality
• High Scale SUSY Breaking From Topological Inflation
• A Correlation Between the Higgs Mass and Dark Matter
• Fine-tuned vs. natural supersymmetry: what does the string landscape predict?
• Effects of Inhomogeneity on the Causal Entropic prediction of Lambda
• Pure Gravity Mediation and Chaotic Inflation in Supergravity
• The impact of the cosmological constant on past and future star formation
• Role of initial conditions in the Universe formation
• Enhanced One-Loop Corrections to WIMP Annihilation and their Thermal Relic Density in the Coannihilation Region
• Constraints on Vacuum Energy from Structure Formation and Nucleosynthesis
• The apparent fine-tuning of the cosmological, gravitational and fine structure constants
• Signals of Inflation in a Friendly String Landscape
• Life, the Universe, and almost Everything: Signs of Cosmic Design?
• Anthropics of Aluminum-26 Decay and Biological Homochirality
• A Local Wheeler-DeWitt Measure for the String Landscape
• Sharp Predictions from Eternal Inflation Patches in D-brane Inflation
• Cavitation model of the initial stage of Big Bang
• Einstein vs Maxwell: Is gravitation a curvature of space, a field in flat space, or both?
• Baryon-to-Dark Matter Ratio from Random Angular Fields
• Manifestation and Origin of the Isotope Effect
• The universe formation by a space reduction cascade with random initial parameters
• Lower limit on the gravitino mass in low-scale gauge mediation with $m_H\simeq 125$GeV
• On Probability and Cosmology: Inference Beyond Data?
• Effects of Bound Diprotons and Enhanced Nuclear Reaction Rates on Stellar Evolution
• Reduced Axion Abundance from an Extended Symmetry
• The Impact of Dark Matter on Gravitational Wave Detection by Space-based Interferometers
• New Inflation in the Landscape and Typicality of the Observed Cosmic Perturbation
• Multiverse Predictions for Habitability: Origin of Life Scenarios
• Electromagnetic modeling and science reach of DMRadio-m${}^3$
• Connection between $\nu n\to \bar{\nu }\bar{n}$ reactions and $n$-$\bar{n}$ oscillations via additional Higgs triplets
• Cosmic Initial Conditions for a Habitable Universe
• Spectra of conditionalization and typicality in the multiverse
• Lectures on Naturalness, String Landscape and Multiverse
• Congeniality Bounds on Quark Masses from Nucleosynthesis
• State-to-State Cosmology: a new view on the cosmological arrow of time and the past hypothesis
• Seeking a Game in which the standard model Group shall Win
• Preliminary Inconclusive Hint of Evidence Against Optimal Fine Tuning of the Cosmological Constant for Maximizing the Fraction of Baryons Becoming Life
• Possible Solution to the Triple Alpha Fine-Tuning Problem: Spallation Reactions during Planet Formation
• The Universe as a Set of Topological Fluids with Hierarchy and Fine Tuning of Coupling Constants in Terms of Graph Manifolds
• Flexible extra dimensions
• The Fine-Tuning Argument
• Anthropic Origin of the Neutrino Mass from Cooling Failure
• An introduction to axions and their detection
• Numerical search for a fundamental theory
• Dark Matter Annihilations in the Causal Diamond
• Does Cosmological Evolution Select for Technology?
• Axion-Assisted Electroweak Baryogenesis
• A brief history of the multiverse
• The problem of what exists
• How to create a universe
• The Observer Class Hypothesis
• Axion induced SUSY breaking and focus point gaugino mediation
• Dark Matter Candidates: What Cold, ..and What's Not