Related papers: Parity Violating Non-Gaussianity from Axion-Gauge …
One often resorts to a non-minimal coupling of the electromagnetic field in order to generate magnetic fields during inflation. The coupling is expected to depend on a scalar field, possibly the same as the one driving inflation. At the…
Many controlled realizations of chaotic inflation employ pseudo-scalar axions. Pseudo-scalars \phi are naturally coupled to gauge fields through c \phi F \tilde{F}. In the presence of this coupling, gauge field quanta are copiously produced…
We describe a general scenario where primordial non-Gaussian curvature perturbations are generated in models with extra scalar fields. The extra scalars communicate to the inflaton sector mainly through the tachyonic (waterfall) field…
Inflaton-vector interactions of the type $\phi F\tilde{F}$ have provided interesting phenomenology to tackle some of current problems in cosmology, namely the vectors could constitute the dark matter component. It could also lead to…
We show that a conformal-invariance violating coupling of the inflaton to electromagnetism produces a cross correlation between curvature fluctuations and a spectrum of primordial magnetic fields. According to this model, in the case of…
In string theory inspired models of axion-like fields, sub-leading non-perturbative effects, if sufficiently large, can introduce steep cliffs and gentle plateaus onto the underlying scalar potential. During inflation, the motion of a…
Recently multi-field inflation models that can produce large scalar fluctuations on small scales have drawn a lot of attention, primarily because they could lead to primordial black hole production and generation of large second-order…
Several pulsar timing arrays including NANOGrav, EPTA, PPTA, and CPTA have recently reported the observation of a stochastic background of gravitational wave spectrum in the nano-Hz frequencies. An inflationary interpretation of this…
We present a model of inflation in which the inflaton field is charged under a triplet of $U(1)$ gauge fields. The model enjoys an internal $O(3)$ symmetry supporting the isotropic FRW solution. With an appropriate coupling between the…
If the conformal invariance of electromagnetism is broken during inflation, then primordial magnetic fields may be produced. If this symmetry breaking is generated by the coupling between electromagnetism and a scalar field---e.g. the…
We investigate parity-violating signatures of temperature and polarization bispectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in an inflationary model where a rolling pseudoscalar produces large equilateral tensor non-Gaussianity. By a…
We use conformal symmetry to constrain the shape of inflationary correlators in the presence of long-lived vector field perturbations. Applying conformal Ward identities, we derive general expressions, up to amplitudes and normalization…
We have recently shown that multi-field axion N-flation can lead to observable non-gaussianity in much of its parameter range, with the assisted inflation mechanism ensuring that the density perturbations are sufficiently close to scale…
Evidence for the presence of extra fields during inflation may be found in the anisotropies of the scalar and tensor spectra across a vast range of scales. Indeed, beyond the single-field slow-roll paradigm, a long tensor mode can modulate…
Sphaleron heating has been recently proposed as a mechanism to realize warm inflation when inflaton is an axion coupled to pure Yang-Mills. As a result of heating, there is a friction coefficient $\gamma \propto T^3$ in the equation of…
We point out that a light scalar field fluctuating around a symmetry-enhaced point can generate large non-Gaussianity in density fluctuations. We name such a particle as an "ungaussiton", a scalar field dominantly produced by the quantum…
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…
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…
Tensor non-Gaussianity represents an important future probe of the physics of inflation. Inspired by recent works, we elaborate further on the possibility of significant primordial tensor non-Gaussianities sourced by extra fields during…
We investigate the scalar and vector modes arising from cosmological perturbations within the framework of an inflationary scenario driven by an antisymmetric tensor field, minimally coupled to gravity. After eliminating gauge artifacts,…