Speaker
Giovanni Grilli di Cortona
(Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)
Description
The QCD axion is the most robust explanation to the strong CP problem and provides a good dark matter candidate. A population of QCD axions can be produced in the early universe via scattering with SM particles, and can be searched for in cosmological datasets. I will present the state-of-the-art bound on the minimal QCD axion model by confronting momentum-dependent Boltzmann equations, from axion-pion scattering below the QCD cross-over, against up-to-date measurements of the CMB and abundances from BBN. Finally, I will present forecasts using dedicated likelihoods for future cosmological surveys and a new sphaleron rate from unquenched lattice QCD.
Primary author
Giovanni Grilli di Cortona
(Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)
