Universiteit Leiden

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Lecture

Axions, Anomalies and Gravity

Date
Wednesday 18 March 2020
Time
Location
Online
Room
Online

Axions, Anomalies and Gravity

After describing the standard formulation of strong-CP problem and its Peccei-Quinn solution, we reformulate the model in the language of a gauge three-form theory and its Higgs phase.

We give analogous description for generation of the mass of eta-prime meson in QCD. Thanks to the power of gauge redundancy and anomalies, this formulation makes several things physically very transparent.

For example, it shows that in the limit of vanishing Yukawa coupling for one of the quarks, the eta-prime meson becomes an axion.  It also allows to understand under what conditions gravity interferes with the axion solution of the strong-CP problem and how this interference can be avoided in the Standard Model and its extensions.

We discuss implications for neutrino physics such as the generation of neutrino masses from the gravitational anomaly.  

In connection with the corona virus situation, this was an online lecture, in which questions can be asked via chat. 

Lecture Recording

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