Perturbatively including inhomogeneities in axion inflation

Journal Article · 12 March 2024 · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2024/03/019 · OSTI ID:2479312

Domcke, Valerie  ^[1]; Ema, Yohei  ^[2]; Sandner, Stefan  ^[3]

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1. European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland)
2. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
3. Universitat de València and CSIC, Paterna (Spain)

Axion inflation, i.e. an axion-like inflaton coupled to an Abelian gauge field through a Chern-Simons interaction, comes with a rich and testable phenomenology. This is particularly true in the strong backreaction regime, where the gauge field production heavily impacts the axion dynamics. Lattice simulations have recently demonstrated the importance of accounting for inhomogeneities of the axion field in this regime. We propose a perturbative scheme to account for these inhomogeneities while maintaining high computational efficiency. Our goal is to accurately capture deviations from the homogeneous axion field approximation within the perturbative regime as well as self-consistently determine the onset of the nonperturbative regime.

• Research Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0011842
• OSTI ID: 2479312
• Journal Information: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Journal Issue: 03 Vol. 2024; ISSN 1475-7516
• Publisher: Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English