Related papers: Large Nongaussianity in Axion Inflation
We demonstrate that gravitational waves generated by efficient gauge preheating after axion inflation generically contribute significantly to the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom $N_\mathrm{eff}$. We show that, with…
A safe way to reheat the universe, in models of natural and quadratic inflation, is through shift symmetric couplings between the inflaton $\phi$ and the Standard Model (SM), since they do not generate loop corrections to the potential…
With the Planck 2015 result, most of the well known canonical large field inflation models turned out to be strongly disfavored. Axion inflation is one of such models which is becoming marginalized with the increasing precession of CMB…
We study the multifield dynamics of axion models nonminimally coupled to gravity. As usual, we consider a canonical $U(1)$ symmetry-breaking model in which the axion is the phase of a complex scalar field. If the complex scalar field has a…
A pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson (such as an axion-like particle) is a theoretically well-motivated inflaton as it features a naturally flat potential (natural inflation). This is because Goldstone's theorem protects its potential from…
Axions play a central role in many realizations of large field models of inflation and in recent alternative mechanisms for generating primordial tensor modes in small field models. If these axions couple to gauge fields, the coupling…
An axion-like inflaton coupled to non-Abelian gauge bosons provides a compelling microphysical framework for warm inflation. Starting even from cold initial conditions, in these systems, sphaleron heating may generate thermal friction…
N-flation is a radiatively stable scenario for chaotic inflation in which the displacements of $N \gg 1$ axions with decay constants $f_1 \le \ldots \le f_N < M_P$ lead to a super-Planckian effective displacement equal to the Pythagorean…
We numerically study axion-U(1) inflation, focusing on the regime where the coupling between axions and gauge fields results in significant backreaction from the amplified gauge fields during inflation. These amplified gauge fields not only…
The electric Weak Gravity Conjecture demands that axions with large decay constant $f$ couple to light instantons. The resulting large instantonic corrections pose problems for natural inflation. We explore an alternative argument based on…
We analyze in detail the background cosmological evolution of a scalar field coupled to a massless abelian gauge field through an axial term $\frac{\phi}{f_\gamma} F \tilde{F}$, such as in the case of an axion. Gauge fields in this case are…
We consider a simple inflation model with a complex scalar field coupled to gravity non-minimally. Both the modulus and the angular directions of the complex scalar are slowly rolling, leading to two-field inflation. The modulus direction…
We present a new model of large field inflation along a winding trajectory in the field space of two axionic fields, where the 'axions' originate from the complex structure moduli sector of a Calabi-Yau 3-fold at large complex structure.…
We implement the scenario of early relaxation of the axion via a high scale confinement within $SU(5)$ grand unified theory and study an epoch of strong QCD in inflationary cosmology. We consider scenarios in which, during inflation, the…
In the so-called natural inflation, an axion-like inflaton is assumed to have a cosine-type periodic potential. This is not the case in a very simple model in which the axion-like inflaton is coupled to an SU(N) (or other) pure Yang-Mills,…
We show that the hybrid inflation is naturally realized in the framework of a supersymmetric axion model, which is consistent with the WMAP observation if the Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking scale is around 10^{15}GeV. By solving the post…
A model of high scale inflation is presented where the radial part of the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) field with a non-minimal coupling to gravity plays the role of the inflaton, and the QCD axion is the dark matter. A quantum fluctuation of…
In this note, we discuss the implications of the weak gravity conjecture (WGC) for general models of large-field inflation with a large number of axions $N$. We first show that, from the bottom-up perspective, such models admit a variety of…
We propose a landscape of many axions, where the axion potential receives various contributions from shift symmetry breaking effects. We show that the existence of the axion with a super-Planckian decay constant is very common in the axion…
We revisit inflationary cosmology of axion models in the light of recent developments on the inflaton decay in supergravity. We find that all the cosmological difficulties, including gravitino, axino overproduction and axionic isocurvature…