# Inflaxion Dark Matter

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel axion dark matter production mechanism involving low-scale inflation and kinetic mixing, which broadens the viable parameter space and links dark matter stability with reheating temperature.

## Contribution

It proposes a new axion production mechanism via kinetic mixing with the inflaton during low-scale inflation, expanding the allowed axion parameter space.

## Key findings

- Axion can account for dark matter with decay constants at GUT scale or higher.
- Kinetic mixing links dark matter lifetime to reheating temperature.
- The mechanism prevents axion overproduction in the early universe.

## Abstract

A new mechanism for producing axion dark matter is proposed. By invoking low-scale inflation and a kinetic mixing between the axion and the inflaton, it is shown that the axion is driven to a field point slightly displaced from the potential minimum, which can give rise to the observed dark matter abundance. In this framework, different combinations of the axion and inflaton fields play various cosmological roles, including generating the cosmological perturbations, reheating the universe, and serving as dark matter. The kinetic mixing also relates the dark matter lifetime with the reheating temperature. The mechanism tames axions that would otherwise overdominate the universe, and thus opens up new windows in the axion parameter space, including decay constants at the GUT scale and higher.