The 3.5 keV line from stringy axions

• Main Authors: Michele Cicoli, Victor A. Diaz, Veronica Guidetti, Markus Rummel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2017-10-01
• Series: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Subjects: Compactification and String Models; Cosmology of Theories beyond the SM; Superstring Vacua
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/JHEP10(2017)192

Abstract An interesting result in particle astrophysics is the recent detection of an unexplained 3.5 keV line from galaxy clusters. A promising model, which can explain the morphology of the signal and its non-observation in dwarf spheroidal galaxies, involves a 7keV dark matter particle decaying into a pair of ultra-light axions that convert into photons in the magnetic field of the clusters. Given that light axions emerge naturally in 4D string vacua, in this paper we present a microscopic realisation of this model within the framework of type IIB flux compactifications. Dark matter is a local closed string axion which develops a tiny mass due to subdominant poly-instanton corrections to the superpotential and couples via kinetic mixing to an almost massless open string axion living on a D3-brane at a singularity. The interaction of this ultra-light axion with photons is induced by U(1) kinetic mixing. After describing the Calabi-Yau geometry and the brane set-up, we discuss in depth moduli stabilisation, the resulting mass spectrum and the strength of all relevant couplings.