2 papers
astro-ph.CO2026
Phenomenology of Inflaton-Driven Early QCD Confinement and Solution to Axion Isocurvature Problem
Evangelos I. Sfakianakis, Barmak Shams Es Haghi, Katherine Freese
We study the phenomenology of early QCD confinement during inflation, driven by a direct coupling between the inflaton and Standard Model gluons. This coupling dynamically raises t…
astro-ph.CO2026
Isocurvature-Free QCD Axion Dark Matter from Inflaton-Driven Early QCD: the Necessity of Inflationary Plateaus
Katherine Freese, Evangelos I. Sfakianakis, Barmak Shams Es Haghi
A direct coupling between the inflaton and Standard Model gluons can dynamically raise the QCD confinement scale during inflation, making the axion temporarily heavy and suppressin…