Peccei-Quinn Relaxion

The relaxation mechanism, which solves the electroweak hierarchy problem without relying on TeV scale new physics, crucially depends on how a Higgs-dependent back-reaction potential is generated. In this paper, we suggest a new scenario in which the scalar potential induced by the QCD anomaly is responsible both for the relaxation mechanism and the Peccei-Quinn mechanism to solve the strong CP problem. The key idea is to introduce the relaxion and the QCD axion whose cosmic evolutions become quite different depending on an inflaton-dependent scalar potential. Our scheme raises the cutoff scale of the Higgs mass up to 10^7 GeV, and allows reheating temperature higher than the electroweak scale as would be required for viable cosmology. In addition, the QCD axion can account for the observed dark matter of the universe as produced by the conventional misalignment mechanism. We also consider the possibility that the couplings of the Standard Model depend on the inflaton and become stronger during inflation. In this case, the relaxation can be implemented with a sub-Planckian field excursion of the relaxion for a cutoff scale below 10 TeV.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure; minor changes, accepted for publication in JHE

Moduli-induced Baryogenesis

We study a scenario for baryogenesis in modular cosmology and discuss its implications for the moduli stabilization mechanism and the supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking scale. If moduli fields dominate the Universe and decay into the standard model particles through diatonic couplings, the right amount of baryon asymmetry can be generated through CP violating decay of gluino into quark and squark followed by baryon-number violating squark decay. We find that, in the KKLT-type moduli stabilization, at least two non-perturbative terms are required to obtain a sizable CP phase, and that the successful baryogenesis is possible for the soft SUSY breaking mass heavier than O(1) TeV. A part of the parameter space for successful baryogenesis can be probed at the collider experiments, dinucleon decay search experiment, and the measurements of electric dipole moments of neutron and electron. It is also shown that similar baryogenesis works in the case of the gravitino- or the saxion-dominated Universe.Comment: 36 pages, 2 figure

Higgs Mixing in the NMSSM and Light Higgsinos

We explore the effects of Higgs mixing in the general next-to-minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM). Extended to include a gauge singlet, the Higgs sector can naturally explain the observed Higgs boson mass in TeV scale supersymmetry without invoking large stop mixing. This is particularly the case when the singlet scalar is light so that singlet-doublet mixing increases the mass of the SM-like Higgs boson. In such a case the Higgs mixing has interesting implications following from the fact that the higgsino mass parameter and the singlet coupling to Higgs bilinear crucially depend on the Higgs boson masses and mixing angles. For the mixing compatible with the current LHC data on the Higgs signal rates, the higgsinos are required to be relatively light, around or below a few hundred GeV, as long as the heavy doublet Higgs boson has a mass smaller than about 250\sqrt{\tan\beta} GeV and the singlet-like Higgs boson is consistent with the LEP constraint. In addition, the Higgs coupling to photons can receive a sizable contribution of either sign from the charged-higgsino loops combined with singlet-doublet mixing.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, Higgs data updated, discussion extended, typos fixed, to appear in JHE