Abstract
We discuss how to formulate a quantum field theory of dark energy interacting with dark matter. We show that the proposals based on the assumption that dark matter is made up of heavy particles with masses which are very sensitive to the value of dark energy are strongly constrained. Quintessence-generated long range forces and radiative stability of the quintessence potential require that such dark matter and dark energy are completely decoupled. However, if dark energy and a fraction of dark matter are very light axions, they can have significant mixings which are radiatively stable and perfectly consistent with quantum field theory. Such models can naturally occur in multi-axion realizations of monodromies. The mixings yield interesting signatures which are observable and are within current cosmological limits but could be constrained further by future observations.
Highlights
Close to 95% of the Universe is invisible
The point is that the sensitivity of the dark energy (DE) Lagrangian mass term to dark matter (DM) scales is a real thing; as long as the DM particles are much heavier than DE, we insist that the standard rules of quantum field theory (QFT) apply, and there are no additional symmetries between the scales mDE and mDM to cancel these corrections
The considerations above show that the main obstruction to DM/DE interactions comes from decoupling in QFT: light and heavy fields do not mix very well
Summary
Close to 95% of the Universe is invisible. About a quarter of it is compressible, behaving as dark matter (DM). The point is that the sensitivity of the DE Lagrangian mass term to DM scales is a real thing; as long as the DM particles are much heavier than DE, we insist that the standard rules of QFT apply, and there are no additional symmetries between the scales mDE and mDM to cancel these corrections.. The scalar was too heavy to be in slow roll on its own, the coupling to neutrinos could allow the relic neutrino background to slow down its cosmological evolution This relied on neutrino-DE couplings which were too strong and led to additional attractive longrange forces at distances < 1=mDE, which, while shorter than the scale of the Universe, were still too long range. While the interactions might lead to imprints in the DE evolution, the evolution of DM is not directly affected
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