Speaker
Raymond Volkas
(University of Melbourne)
Description
Speaker: Raymond Volkas
Abstract: VISHnu is a flavour-variant DFSZ axion model where the type-1 seesaw neutrino mass scale is identified with the Peccei-Quinn breaking scale. So, as well as solving the strong-CP problem and providing a viable axion-majoron dark matter candidate, it also explains why neutrino masses are tiny and provides an economical mechanism for generating the baryon asymmetry of the universe through leptogenesis. A key feature is inflation driven by a non-minimal coupling of the Peccei-Quinn scalar to the Ricci scalar. Results about how reheating can proceed through inflaton-neutrino coupling will also be briefly presented.