Scale-dependent chirality as a smoking gun for Abelian gauge fields during inflation

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Hauptverfasser: Özsoy, Ogan, Papageorgiou, Alexandros, Fasiello, Matteo
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Özsoy, Ogan
Papageorgiou, Alexandros
Fasiello, Matteo
author_facet Özsoy, Ogan
Papageorgiou, Alexandros
Fasiello, Matteo
contents Axion-inflation models are a compelling candidate as a mechanism behind the accelerated expansion in the early universe in light of the possibility to embed them in higher dimensional UV complete theories and the exciting prospect of testing them with next-generation cosmological probes. Adding an Abelian gauge sector to axion-inflation models makes for a rich, interesting, phenomenology spanning from primordial black holes to gravitational waves (GWs). Several recent studies employ an approximate analytic (Gaussian) template to characterize the effect of gauge field production on cosmological perturbations. In this work we go beyond such approximation and numerically study particle production and the ensuing scalar and tensor spectra. We find a significant deviation from results based on log-normally distributed vector field excitations. As an important phenomenological application of the improved method, we study the expected chirality and spectral index of the sourced GW background at scales relevant for current and next-generation GW detectors. One striking feature is that of a scale-dependent chirality. We derive a consistency relation between these two observables that can serve as an important tool in identifying key signatures of multi-field dynamics in axion inflation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_14963
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Scale-dependent chirality as a smoking gun for Abelian gauge fields during inflation
Özsoy, Ogan
Papageorgiou, Alexandros
Fasiello, Matteo
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
Axion-inflation models are a compelling candidate as a mechanism behind the accelerated expansion in the early universe in light of the possibility to embed them in higher dimensional UV complete theories and the exciting prospect of testing them with next-generation cosmological probes. Adding an Abelian gauge sector to axion-inflation models makes for a rich, interesting, phenomenology spanning from primordial black holes to gravitational waves (GWs). Several recent studies employ an approximate analytic (Gaussian) template to characterize the effect of gauge field production on cosmological perturbations. In this work we go beyond such approximation and numerically study particle production and the ensuing scalar and tensor spectra. We find a significant deviation from results based on log-normally distributed vector field excitations. As an important phenomenological application of the improved method, we study the expected chirality and spectral index of the sourced GW background at scales relevant for current and next-generation GW detectors. One striking feature is that of a scale-dependent chirality. We derive a consistency relation between these two observables that can serve as an important tool in identifying key signatures of multi-field dynamics in axion inflation.
title Scale-dependent chirality as a smoking gun for Abelian gauge fields during inflation
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.14963