Flavored axion-monodromy inflation

Raymundo Ramos

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/761/1/012013

Abstract

In this talk we consider the breaking of a flavor-symmetric potential as the origin of the pseudo-Goldstone bosons responsible for inflation. The breaking of flavor symmetry generates the fermion mass hierarchy while the breaking of accidental symmetries leads to pseudo-Goldstone bosons with an axion-monodromy potential appropriate for inflation. We deal with models where the inflaton is a linear combination of two fields. We will show that the mechanism by which inflation ends depends on the choice of parameters.

Highlights

The prevailing approach to solving the horizon and flatness problems of conventionalBig Bang cosmology is inflation, a period in which the universe underwent exponential expansion due to the effects of the nearly constant energy density provided by a scalar field [1]
If the inflaton has no purpose other than to provide the source of the energy density that drives inflation, model building becomes isomorphic to studying ways of generating different functional forms for the inflaton potential
We consider the possibility that the inflaton may be identified as a linear combination of the approximate goldstone bosons that arise when these accidental symmetries are spontaneously broken

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The prevailing approach to solving the horizon and flatness problems of conventional. If the inflaton has no purpose other than to provide the source of the energy density that drives inflation, model building becomes isomorphic to studying ways of generating different functional forms for the inflaton potential. We will see that the discrete symmetry ZΦp × Zχr serves four purposes: (i) it assures that there are goldstone bosons that have no potential generated by renormalizable couplings, (ii) it will serve as a flavor symmetry to create a hierarchy of standard model fermion Yukawa couplings, (iii) it will lead to the correct pattern of couplings in a new gauge sector that provides for the desired form of the inflaton potential, Eq (1.9), and (iv) it will keep quantum gravitational corrections to the potential highly suppressed. A brief appendix is provided to review relevant facts about discrete gauge symmetries

INFLATIONARY TRAJECTORIES

Origin of the potential

Standard Model Flavor

CONCLUSIONS