Abstract

Many cosmological models rely on large couplings of axions (pseudo-scalar fields) to gauge fields. Examples include theories of magnetogenesis, inflation on a steep potential, chiral gravitational waves, and chromonatural inflation. I will discuss the extent to which these large couplings could be explained as a product of order one numbers in a UV completed particle physics model: in the parlance of our times, can these cosmological models be “clockworked”?

I will also discuss possible self-couplings of the axions and their implications for the formation of exotic compact objects such as axion stars.