Testing the heterotic string with the axion-photon coupling

Journal article

The discovery of an axion-like particle above the QCD line would rule out Grand Unified Theories, including the perturbative heterotic string with the Standard Model embedded in a single E8 factor or SO(32). In this work we study a possible loophole to this observation, given by compactifications of the E8 × E8 heterotic string with a non-standard embedding of the Standard Model into the 10-dimensional gauge group. If electromagnetism is embedded into both E8 factors, axions can couple to photons via the anomaly without coupling to QCD. We obtain upper bounds to the coupling-to-mass ratio gaγ/ma for these axion-like particles as a function of the supersymmetry breaking scale and the unified gauge coupling. To be compatible with the measured gauge couplings and the weak mixing angle sin2θw at low-energies, phenomenologically viable models with non-standard U(1)Y embedding require sizeable one-loop threshold corrections from string states and/or charged matter at intermediate energy scales. We study how these effects modify the tree-level upper bounds to gaγ/ma and show that, in the perturbative regime, they reduce the leading order estimates. Axion-like particles far above the QCD line are only possible in certain models where perturbation theory is lost. The main conclusion is that the discovery of an axion violating the bounds found in this work would be incompatible with large classes of otherwise phenomenologically viable string models, including the perturbative heterotic SO(32) and E8 × E8 string, the type-I string, and certain heterotic M-theories. The role of small gauge instantons and worldsheet instantons in making some of the axion-like particles heavy and cosmologically relevant is briefly discussed.

Authors: Reig, M; Weigand, T

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Springer
• Journal: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Volume: 2026
• Issue: 1
• Article number: 6
• Publication date: 2026-01-02
• Acceptance date: 2025-11-18
• DOI: 10.1007/jhep01(2026)006
• EISSN: 1029-8479
• ISSN: 1126-6708
• Language: English
• Keywords: String and Brane Phenomenology; Anomalies in Field and String Theories; Axions and ALPs; Superstrings and Heterotic Strings