It has been recently pointed out that in certain axion models it is possible to suppress simultaneously both the axion couplings to nucleons and electrons, realizing the so-called astrophobic axion scenarios, wherein the tight bounds from SN1987A and from stellar evolution of red giants and white dwarfs are greatly relaxed. So far, however, the conditions for realizing astrophobia have only been set out in tree-level analyses. Here we study whether these conditions can still be consistently implemented once renormalization group effects are included in the running of axion couplings. We find that axion astrophobia keeps holding, albeit within fairly different parameter space regions, and we provide analytical insights into this result. Given that astrophobic axion models generally feature flavor-violating axion couplings, we also assess the impact of renormalization group effects on axion-mediated flavor-violating observables.

• Received 4 June 2022
• Accepted 22 August 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.106.055016

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Published by the American Physical Society