Related papers: Constraints on small-field axion inflation
We study the effects of the interaction terms between the inflaton fields on the inflationary dynamics in multi-field models. With power law type potential and interactions, the total number of e-folds may get considerably reduced and can…
Ultra-light axions ($m_a\lesssim 10^{-18}$eV), motivated by string theory, can be a powerful probe of the energy scale of inflation. In contrast to heavier axions the isocurvature modes in the ultra-light axions can coexist with observable…
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 study possibilities for lowering the decay constants of superstring axions. In the heterotic Calabi-Yau compactification, a localized model-dependent axion can appear at a nearly collapsing 2-cycle. The effect of flux can be used for…
We study string inspired two-field models of large-field inflation based on axion monodromy in the presence of an interacting heavier modulus. This class of models has enough structure to approximate at least part of the backreaction…
The QCD axion is the leading solution to the strong-CP problem, a dark matter candidate, and a possible result of string theory compactifications. However, for axions produced before inflation, symmetry-breaking scales of $f_a \gtrsim…
We derive the requirements that a generic axion-like field has to satisfy in order to play the role of the inflaton field in the warm inflation scenario. Compared to the parameter space in ordinary natural inflation models, we find that the…
We present the results of a detailed study of how isocurvature axion fluctuations are converted into adiabatic metric perturbations through axion decay, and discuss the constraints on the parameters of pre-big bang cosmology needed for…
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…
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…
The QCD axion in the pre-inflation scenario faces a stringent isocurvature constraint, which requires a relatively low Hubble scale during inflation. If the axion was heavier than the Hubble scale during inflation, its isocurvature is…
We discuss a realization of a small field inflation based on string inspired supergravities. In theories accompanying extra dimensions, compactification of them with small radii is required for realistic situations. Since the extra…
Incorporating the QCD axion and simultaneously satisfying current constraints on the dark matter density and isocurvature fluctuations requires non-minimal fine-tuning of inflationary parameters or the axion misalignment angle (or both) for…
We develop new scenarios of large field inflation in type IIA string compactifications in which the key ingredient is a D6-brane that creates a potential for a B-field axion. The potential has the multi-branched structure typical of F-term…
We propose a model for inflation consisting of an axionic scalar field coupled to a set of three non-Abelian gauge fields. Our model's novel requirement is that the gauge fields begin inflation with a rotationally invariant vacuum…
We propose a natural inflation model driven by an imaginary or axionic component of a K\"ahler modulus in string-inspired supergravity. The shift symmetry of the axion is gauged under an anomalous $U(1)_X$ symmetry, which leads to a…
String scenarios generically predict that we live in a so called axiverse: the Universe with about a hundred of light axion species which are decoupled from the Standard Model particles. However, the axions can couple to the inflaton which…
String theory realisations of the QCD axion are often said to belong to the anthropic window where the decay constant is around the GUT scale and the initial misalignment angle has to be tuned close to zero. In this paper we revisit this…
Large field inflation is arguably the simplest and most natural variant of slow-roll inflation. Axion monodromy may be the most promising framework for realising this scenario. As one of its defining features, the long-range polynomial…
We show that a pair of field theory monodromies in which the shift symmetry is broken by small, well motivated deformations, naturally incorporates a mechanism for cancelling off radiative corrections to the cosmological constant. The…