Phenomenology of a pseudo-scalar inflaton: naturally large nongaussianity
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, 116 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (United States)
Many controlled realizations of chaotic inflation employ pseudo-scalar axions. Pseudo-scalars φ are naturally coupled to gauge fields through cφF F-tilde . In the presence of this coupling, gauge field quanta are copiously produced by the rolling inflaton. The produced gauge quanta, in turn, source inflaton fluctuations via inverse decay. These new cosmological perturbations add incoherently with the ''vacuum'' perturbations, and are highly nongaussian. This provides a natural mechanism to generate large nongaussianity in single or multi field slow-roll inflation. The resulting phenomenological signatures are highly distinctive: large nongaussianity of (nearly) equilateral shape, in addition to detectably large values of both the scalar spectral tilt and tensor-to-scalar ratio (both being typical of large field inflation). The WMAP bound on nongaussianity implies that the coupling c of the pseudo-scalar inflaton to any gauge field must be smaller than about 10{sup 2} M{sub p}{sup −1}.
- OSTI ID:
- 22277836
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2011, Issue 04; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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