collaborators

6 papers

hep-ph2026

Can QCD Axions Survive the Cosmological Constant Problem?

Carsten van de Bruck, C. P. Burgess, Adam Smith

Mechanisms that dynamically relax the vacuum energy offer a concrete way to approach the cosmological constant problem, but because relaxation is not confined to the vacuum energy…

gr-qc2026

Multi-Field Dilaton Screening Beyond the Thin-Shell Mechanism

Philippe Brax, Carsten van de Bruck, Anne-Christine Davis +1

We analyse screening in multi-field scalar-tensor theories, focusing on systems with a dilaton coupled to matter and an axion with a dilaton-dependent kinetic term, in the presence…

astro-ph.CO2025

The Serendipitous Axiodilaton: A Self-Consistent Recombination-Era Solution to the Hubble Tension

Adam Smith, Maria Mylova, Carsten van de Bruck +2

Axio-dilaton cosmology provides a minimal benchmark model for both Dark Matter (DM) and Dark Energy (DE) that is well motivated by fundamental physics. The axion and dilaton arise…

astro-ph.CO2025

Dynamical Dark Energy Meets Varying Electron Mass: Implications for Phantom Crossing and the Hubble Constant

Adam Smith, Emre Özülker, Eleonora Di Valentino +1

We investigate the interplay between varying electron mass () and dynamical dark energy by analysing the Chevallier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) parametrization and its non-crossing…

hep-th2025

Screened Axio-dilaton Cosmology: Novel Forms of Early Dark Energy

Adam Smith, Philippe Brax, Carsten van de Bruck +2

We study the cosmology of multi-field Dark Energy, using a well-motivated axio-dilaton model that contains the minimal number of fields to have the 2-derivative sigma-model interac…

hep-th2025

A Minimal Axio-dilaton Dark Sector

Adam Smith, Maria Mylova, Philippe Brax +3

In scalar-tensor theories it is the two-derivative sigma-model interactions that like to compete at low energies with the two-derivative interactions of General Relativity (GR) $\u…