2010/08/31 by Peter Graf, Frank Daniel Steffen · 7 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.83.075011
published as Phys.Rev.D83:075011,2011 · 5 pages, 4 figures; v2: typo in (15) corrected, one reference added; v3: minor changes, references added, matches published version
openalex publication_date 2011/04/13 · arxiv created 2011/04/20 · arxiv updated 2011/04/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We calculate the rate for thermal production of axions via scattering of quarks and gluons in the primordial quark-gluon plasma. To obtain a finite result in a gauge-invariant way that is consistent to leading order in the strong gauge coupling, we use systematic field theoretical methods such as hard thermal loop resummation and the Braaten-Yuan prescription. The thermally produced yield, the decoupling temperature, and the density parameter are computed for axions with a mass below 10 meV. In this regime, with a Peccei-Quinn scale above 6x108 GeV, the associated axion population can still be relativistic today and can coexist with the axion cold dark matter condensate.