Related papers: Drifting Oscillations in Axion Monodromy
We study the CMB observables in axion monodromy inflation. These well-motivated scenarios for inflation in string theory have monomial potentials over super-Planckian field ranges, with superimposed sinusoidal modulations from instanton…
Amongst the multitude of inflationary models currently available, models that lead to features in the primordial scalar spectrum are drawing increasing attention, since certain features have been found to provide a better fit to the CMB…
Because the inflationary mechanism is extremely sensitive to UV-physics, the construction of theoretically robust models of inflation provides a unique window on Planck-scale physics. We review efforts to use an axion with a shift symmetry…
With the advent of new missions to probe spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background with unprecedented precision, the study of theoretical predictions of these signals becomes a promising avenue to test our description of the…
Flux couplings to string theory axions yield super-Planckian field ranges along which the axion potential energy grows. At the same time, other aspects of the physics remain essentially unchanged along these large displacements, respecting…
We revisit axion monodromy inflation in the context of UV-inspired models and point out that its cosmological observables are sensitive to heavy fields with masses far above the Hubble scale, such as the moduli of flux compactifications. By…
We point out three correlated predictions of the axion monodromy inflation model: large amplitude of gravitational waves, suppression of power on horizon scales and on scales relevant for the formation of dwarf galaxies. While these…
We study the effects of particle production on the evolution of the inflaton field in an axion monodromy model with the goal of discovering in which situations the resulting dynamics will be consistent with the {\it swampland constraints}.…
We investigate whether a recently proposed modulation of the power spectrum of primordial density fluctuations generated through transplankian (maybe stringy) effects during inflation can be observed. We briefly review the mechanism leading…
Observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe suggest the possibility of oscillations in the primordial density perturbation. Such deviations from the usually assumed scale-free…
Different inflationary models predict oscillatory features in the primordial power spectrum. These can leave an imprint on both the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale structure (LSS) of our Universe, that can be searched…
The continuous shift symmetry of axions is at the heart of several realizations of inflationary models. In particular, axion monodromy inflation aims at achieving super-Planckian field ranges for the inflaton in the context of string…
The weak gravity conjecture applied for the aligned natural inflation indicates that generically there can be a modulation of the inflaton potential, with a period determined by sub-Planckian axion scale. We study the oscillations in the…
With future galaxy surveys, a huge number of Fourier modes of the distribution of the large scale structures in the Universe will become available. These modes are complementary to those of the CMB and can be used to set constraints on…
We propose a new realization of axion monodromy inflation in which axion monodromy arises from torsional cycles in a type IIB compactification. A class of monomial potentials is obtained with specific values for the power index. Moreover,…
The latest Planck results show a power deficit in the temperature anisotropies near $\ell \approx 20$ in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This observation can hardly be explained within the standard inflationary…
Large turns in multifield inflation can lead to a very rich phenomenology, but are difficult to realise in supergravity, and typically require large field space curvatures. In this work, we present a mechanism to realise multiple sharp…
In this work we explore the possibility of variations in the primordial scalar power spectrum around the power-law shape, as predicted by single-field slow-roll inflationary scenarios. We search for the trace of these fluctuations in a…
We continue the investigation of F-term axion monodromy inflation in string theory, while seriously taking the issue of moduli stabilization into account. For a number of closed and open string models, we show that they suffer from serious…
We use data from the nominal Planck mission to constrain modulations in the primordial power spectrum associated with monodromy inflation. The largest improvement in fit relative to the unmodulated model has \Delta\chi^2~10 and we find no…