Related papers: Unveiling the nonlinear dynamics of a rolling axio…
Axion inflation coupled to Abelian gauge fields via a Chern-Simons-like term of the form $\phi F\tilde{F}$ represents an attractive inflationary model with a rich phenomenology, including the production of magnetic fields, black holes,…
Models of axion inflation are particularly interesting since they provide a natural justification for the flatness of the potential over a super-Planckian distance, namely the approximate shift-symmetry of the inflaton. In addition, most of…
We provide a derivation from first principles of the primordial bispectrum of scalar perturbations produced during inflation driven by a canonically normalized scalar field whose potential exhibits small sinusoidal modulations. A potential…
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…
Within a genuinely gauge invariant approach recently developed for the computation of the cosmological backreaction, we study, in a cosmological inflationary context and with respect to various observers, the impact of scalar fluctuations…
We investigate the backreaction of the quantum fluctuations of a very light ($m \!\lesssim\! H_{\text{today}}$) nonminimally coupled spectator scalar field on the expansion dynamics of the Universe. The one-loop expectation value of the…
We study how Abelian-gauge-field production during inflation affects scalar perturbations in the case when the gauge field interacts with the inflaton directly (by means of generic kinetic and axial couplings) and via gravity. The…
In this work, we study general features of a regime where gauge fields produced during inflation cause a strong backreaction on the background evolution and its impact on the spectrum and the correlation length of gauge fields. With this…
During inflation an axion field coupled to a gauge field through a Chern-Simons term can trigger the production of gauge quanta due to a tachyonic instability. The amplification of the gauge field modes exponentially depends on the velocity…
Recent works have demonstrated the necessity of capturing the local inhomogeneous physics in axion inflation, and showed new genuine features, most notably the extension of the inflationary period dictated by an electromagnetic slow-roll…
We study the non-Gaussianities generated by light axions, or compact scalar fields, during inflation. To correctly calculate their impact on primordial statistics, we will argue that it is necessary to account for the periodicity, or gauge…
In this work we introduce an effective model of $f(R)$ gravity containing a non-minimal coupling to the axion scalar field. The axion field is described by the misalignment model, in which the primordial $U(1)$ Peccei-Quinn symmetry is…
We consider the case of axion-like particles (ALPs) during inflation. When coupled to a non-Abelian gauge sector via a Chern-Simons term, ALPs support an intriguing, testable, phenomenology with very distinctive features including chiral…
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…
Axion inflation represents an intriguing source of gravitational waves (GWs) from the early Universe. In a companion paper, arXiv:2508.00798, we previously leveraged the gradient expansion formalism (GEF) to investigate pure axion inflation…
Slow-roll inflation is a successful paradigm. However we find that even a small coupling of the inflaton to other light fields can dramatically alter the dynamics and predictions of inflation. As an example, the inflaton can generically…
We consider, in the context of axion-inflation, the \textit{Pure Natural Inflation} (PNI) model coupled with an SU(2) gauge sector via a Chern-Simons term. As the axion rolls down its potential, it dissipates energy in the gauge sector thus…
We study a model of inflation where the scalar perturbations are almost gaussian while there is sizable (equilateral) nongaussianity in the tensor sector. In this model, a rolling pseudoscalar gravitationally coupled to the inflaton…
In a general single field inflationary model we consider the effects of long wavelength scalar fluctuations on the effective expansion rate and equation of state seen by a class of free falling observers, using a physical gauge invariant…
We study a variant of the Chromo-Natural Inflation (CNI) mechanism in which the inflaton interacts only gravitationally with the CNI fields. Integrating out all the non-dynamical scalar fields of the model results in a coupling between the…