Tunneling in Axion Monodromy

Abstract

The Coleman formula for vacuum decay and bubble nucleation has been used to estimate the tunneling rate in models of axion monodromy in recent literature. However, several of Coleman's original assumptions do not hold for such models. Here we derive a new estimate with this in mind using a similar Euclidean procedure. We find that there are significant regions of parameter space for which the tunneling rate in axion monodromy is not well approximated by the Coleman formula. However, there is also a regime relevant to large field inflation in which both estimates parametrically agree. We also briefly comment on the applications of our results to the relaxion scenario.

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• The Swampland: Introduction and Review
• A Tower Weak Gravity Conjecture from Infrared Consistency
• The Swampland Conjecture and F-term Axion Monodromy Inflation
• Backreaction Issues in Axion Monodromy and Minkowski 4-forms
• Transplanckian Censorship and Global Cosmic Strings
• A Monodromy from London
• Flux Flattening in Axion Monodromy Inflation
• AdS scale separation and the distance conjecture
• Gravitational Decoupling and Picard-Lefschetz
• Aligned Natural Inflation in the Large Volume Scenario
• Gravitational tests of electroweak relaxation
• Real-Time Corrections to the Effective Potential
• Tunnelling in Dante's Inferno
• Dark energy with oscillatory tracking potential: Observational Constraints and Perturbative effects
• Brane/flux annihilation in double-throat system