1999/11/12 by Yasunori Nomura, Taizan Watari, T. Watari +1 · 14 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Axion #Boson #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Gauge boson #Gauge theory #Geometry #Global symmetry #Goldstone boson #Instanton #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Spontaneous symmetry breaking #Symmetry (geometry) #Symmetry breaking #Theoretical physics #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.61.105007
published in Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields 61(10) (American Physical Society) · 11 pages, Latex
arxiv created 1999/11/12 · openalex publication_date 2000/04/18 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
If a global chiral symmetry is explicitly broken by anomalies in non-Abelian gauge theories, a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson (axion) associated with a spontaneous breakdown of such a global symmetry acquires a mass through nonperturbative instanton effects. We calculate the axion mass assuming a supersymmetric SU(2) gauge theory and show that the axion obtains an extremely small mass when the SU(2) gauge symmetry is broken down at very high energy, say, at the Planck scale. We identify the axion with a hypothetical ultralight boson field proposed to account for a small but nonzero cosmological constant suggested from recent cosmological observations.