Higher-axion strings: axion strings in the axiverse

by Mario Reig Lopez (University of Oxford)

Thursday May 22, 2025, 1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Europe/Zurich

4/2-037 - TH meeting room (CERN)

I will discuss the minimal requirements to obtain axion strings for axions with exponentially good quality. These ingredients appear in theories where an axion coming from a higher-form gauge field mixes with the phase of a complex scalar field in a situation that resembles higher-groups. The resulting axion is perturbatively massless and inherits a high-quality shift symmetry from the global higher-form symmetry while being compatible with a post-inflationary axion scenario. I will discuss a toy model on a 5-dimensional manifold with a boundary hosting a complex scalar that provides axion strings through standard mechanisms. I will also discuss how these scenarios may arise in heterotic string theory and type II string compactifications.