Improved cosmological bound on the thermal axion mass

2007/05/18 by Alessandro Melchiorri, A. Melchiorri, Olga Mena +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Axion #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Hadron #Neutrino #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.76.041303

published as Phys.Rev.D76:041303,2007 · 5 Pages, 3 Figures

arxiv created 2007/05/18 · openalex publication_date 2007/08/31 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Relic thermal axions could play the role of an extra hot dark matter component in cosmological structure formation theories. By combining the most recent observational data we improve previous cosmological bounds on the axion mass m_a in the so-called hadronic axion window. We obtain a limit on the axion mass m_a<0.42 eV at the 95% C.L. (m_a<0.72 eV at the 99% C.L.). A novel aspect of the analysis presented here is the inclusion of massive neutrinos and how they may affect the bound on the axion mass. If neutrino masses belong to an inverted hierarchy scheme, for example, the above constraint is improved to m_a<0.38 eV at the 95% C.L. (m_a<0.67 eV at the 99% C.L.). Future data from experiments as CAST will provide a direct test of the cosmological bound.

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