(Mainly) axion dark matter

Abstract

The strong CP problem of QCD is at heart a problem of naturalness: why is the F\tilde{F} term highly suppressed in the QCD Lagrangian when it seems necessary to explain why there are three and not four light pions? The most elegant solution posits a spontaneously broken Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry which requires the existence of the axion field a. The axion field settles to the minimum of its potential thus removing the offensive term but giving rise to the physical axion whose coherent oscillations can make up the cold dark matter. Only now are experiments such as ADMX beginning to explore QCD axion parameter space. Since a bonafide scalar particle-- the Higgs boson-- has been discovered, one might expect its mass to reside at the axion scale f_a~ 10^{11} GeV. The Higgs mass is elegantly stabilized by supersymmetry: in this case the axion is accompanied by its axino and saxion superpartners. Requiring naturalness also in the electroweak sector implies higgsino-like WIMPs so then we expect mixed axion-WIMP dark matter. Ultimately we would expect detection of both an axion and a WIMP while signals for light higgsinos may show up at LHC and must show up at ILC.Comment: 6 pages plus 3 figures; transcript of plenary talk given at PPC2015 meeting, Deadwood, SD, June 29, 201