F-term Axion Monodromy Inflation

Abstract

The continuous shift symmetry of axions is at the heart of several realizations of inflationary models. In particular, axion monodromy inflation aims at achieving super-Planckian field ranges for the inflaton in the context of string theory. Despite the elegant underlying principle, explicit models constructed hitherto are exceedingly complicated. We propose a new and better axion monodromy inflationary scenario, where the inflaton potential arises from an F-term. We present several scenarios, where the axion arises from the Kaluza-Klein compactification of higher dimensional gauge fields (or p-form potentials) in the presence of fluxes and/or torsion homology. The monodromy corresponds to a change in the background fluxes, and its F-term nature manifests in the existence of domain walls interpolating among flux configurations. Our scenario leads to diverse inflaton potentials, including linear large field behaviour, chaotic inflation, as well as potentials with even higher powers. They provide an elegant set of constructions with properties in the ballpark of the recent BICEP2 observational data on primordial gravitational waves.

minors corrections, references added

References in corpus (12)

• A Natural Framework for Chaotic Inflation
• An Ignoble Approach to Large Field Inflation
• D-branes in Nongeometric Backgrounds
• Towards large r from [p,q]-inflation
• The effective action of D6-branes in N=1 type IIA orientifolds
• D6-branes and torsion
• D-brane networks in flux vacua, generalized cycles and calibrations
• Coisotropic D8-branes and Model-building
• Wilson Line Inflation
• Chain inflation and the imprint of fundamental physics in the CMBR
• Cascading Quivers from Decaying D-branes
• Flux-induced Soft Terms on Type IIB/F-theory Matter Curves and Hypercharge Dependent Scalar Masses

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Challenges for Large-Field Inflation and Moduli Stabilization
• D7-Brane Moduli Space in Axion Monodromy and Fluxbrane Inflation
• The Challenge of Realizing F-term Axion Monodromy Inflation in String Theory
• Higgs-otic Inflation and String Theory
• Towards Axionic Starobinsky-like Inflation in String Theory
• Axion Monodromy Inflation on Warped Throats
• How Well Can We Really Determine the Scale of Inflation?
• Large Field Inflation from Axion Mixing
• Three-form multiplet and Inflation
• D-brane Potentials in the Warped Resolved Conifold and Natural Inflation
• On D-brane moduli stabilisation
• Modified Lyth bound and implications of BICEP2 results
• Dynamical Fractional Chaotic Inflation -- Dynamical Generation of a Fractional Power-Law Potential for Chaotic Inflation
• Dimensional oxidation and modular completion of non-geometric type IIB action
• Natural Inflation and Low Energy Supersymmetry
• Constraint on the primordial gravitational waves from the joint analysis of BICEP2 and Planck HFI 353 GHz dust polarization data
• Large Field Inflation Models from Higher-Dimensional Gauge Theories