37 citations · 90 across the 14 of their papers we have counts for
5 papers · 1 filter
Spectator Axions in String Inflation and Primordial Black Holes
Michele Cicoli, Dario L. Lorenzoni, Evan McDonough +1
We study the impact of light spectator axions on the seeding of primordial black holes (PBHs) during inflation in string theory. Primordial black holes exhibit unique and novel phe…
Superheavy Dark Matter from the String Theory Axiverse
Siyang Ling, Andrew J. Long, Evan McDonough +1
We propose heavy axions as a natural superheavy dark matter candidate in string theory, with the relic density of dark matter originating in quantum fluctuations during cosmic infl…
Gravitational Production of Completely Dark Photons with Nonminimal Couplings to Gravity
Christian Capanelli, Leah Jenks, Edward W. Kolb +1
Dark photons are a theorized massive spin-1 particle which can be produced via various mechanisms, including cosmological gravitational particle production (GPP) in the early unive…
Swampland Conjectures Constraints on Dark Energy from a Highly Curved Field Space
Guillaume Payeur, Evan McDonough, Robert Brandenberger
We study the interplay of the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture (TCC) and the swampland distance conjecture (SDC) in the context of multifield dark energy in a curved field spa…
Runaway Gravitational Production of Dark Photons
Christian Capanelli, Leah Jenks, Edward W. Kolb +1
We demonstrate that gravitational particle production (GPP) of a massive, Abelian, vector (Proca) field during inflation in the presence of nonminimal coupling to gravity may suffe…