Related papers: Dissipative Axial Inflation
Models of inflation based on axions, which owe their popularity to the robustness against UV corrections, have also a very distinct class of signatures. The relevant interactions of the axion are a non-perturbative oscillating contribution…
The original axion natural inflation model predicts a tensor-to-scalar ratio exceeding experimental limits. Conversely, in aligned axion inflation, inflation can proceed along trajectories emerging from near a saddle point of the two-field…
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…
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…
Canonical models of single-field, slow-roll inflation do not lead to appreciable non-Gaussianity, unless derivative interactions of the inflaton become uncontrollably large. We propose a novel slow-roll scenario where scalar perturbations…
The evolution of two slow--rolling scalar fields with potentials of the form $V=V_0 \phi^{-\alpha}\exp(-\beta \phi^m)$ is studied. Considering different values of the parameters $\alpha$, $\beta$ and $m$, we derive several new inflationary…
Axion inflation is a well-motivated model of cosmic inflation with a rich phenomenology. The abundant production of gauge fields during axion inflation notably sources a stochastic gravitational-wave (GW) background signal, which nourishes…
We consider inflation in a universe with a positive cosmological constant and a nonminimally coupled scalar field, in which the field couples both quadratically and quartically to the Ricci scalar. When considered in the Einstein frame and…
In models of natural inflation, the inflaton is an axion-like particle. Unfortunately, axion potentials in UV-complete theories appear to be too steep to drive inflation. We show that, even for a steep potential, natural inflation can occur…
We show how short inflation naturally arises in a non-minimal gravity theory with a scalar field without any potential terms. This field drives inflation solely by its derivatives, which couple to the matter only through the combination…
We study the onset of the reheating epoch at the end of axion-driven inflation where the axion is coupled to an Abelian, $U(1)$, gauge field via a Chern-Simons interaction term. We focus primarily on $m^2\phi^2$ inflation and explore the…
The scalar and tensor fluctuations generated during inflation can be correlated, if arising from the same underlying mechanism. In this paper we investigate such correlation in the model of axion inflation, where the rolling inflaton…
A model of inflation is presented where the inflaton field is a complex scalar field coupled to a U(1) gauge field. Due to the axial symmetry of the potential, the inflation is driven by the radial direction while the angular field is…
We investigate the dynamics of the recently proposed model of assisted inflation. In this model an arbitrary number of scalar fields with exponential potentials evolve towards an inflationary scaling solution, even if each of the individual…
The inflationary paradigm has enjoyed phenomenological success, however, a compelling particle physics realization is still lacking. The key obstruction is that the requirement of a suitably flat scalar potential is sensitive to…
We apply the squeezed state formalism to scalar field dark matter (e.g. axion) perturbations generated during inflation. As for the inflationary perturbations, the scalar field state becomes highly squeezed as modes exit the horizon. For as…
There has been a growing evidence for the existence of magnetic fields in the extra-galactic regions, while the attempt to associate their origin with the inflationary epoch alone has been found extremely challenging. We therefore take into…
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…
Heavy scalar fields can undergo an instability during inflation as a result of their kinetic couplings with the inflaton. This is known as the geometrical destabilization of inflation, as it relies on the effect of the negative curvature of…
Chromo-natural inflation is a novel model of inflation which relies on the existence of non-abelian gauge fields interacting with an axion. In its simplest realization, an SU(2) gauge field is assumed to begin inflation in a rotationally…