No Warm Inflation From a Vanilla Axion

Fuente: arXiv
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1. Verfasser: Zell, Sebastian
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Zell, Sebastian
author_facet Zell, Sebastian
contents At finite temperature, the coupling of an axion to non-Abelian gauge fields causes dissipation due to sphaleron heating. This mechanism has been considered as ideal for realizing warm inflation since it can lead to large thermal friction while preserving the flatness of the potential. We show, however, that requiring standard properties of an axion -- in particular a discrete shift symmetry -- excludes the strong regime of warm slow-roll inflation, in which thermal friction dominates. The present argument, which does not rely on any phenomenological input, leaves room for the weak regime of warm axion inflation, but in this case a super-Planckian decay constant represents a well-known issue. Finally, we discuss non-minimal and axion-like models as way out.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_07746
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle No Warm Inflation From a Vanilla Axion
Zell, Sebastian
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
At finite temperature, the coupling of an axion to non-Abelian gauge fields causes dissipation due to sphaleron heating. This mechanism has been considered as ideal for realizing warm inflation since it can lead to large thermal friction while preserving the flatness of the potential. We show, however, that requiring standard properties of an axion -- in particular a discrete shift symmetry -- excludes the strong regime of warm slow-roll inflation, in which thermal friction dominates. The present argument, which does not rely on any phenomenological input, leaves room for the weak regime of warm axion inflation, but in this case a super-Planckian decay constant represents a well-known issue. Finally, we discuss non-minimal and axion-like models as way out.
title No Warm Inflation From a Vanilla Axion
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.07746