Weak gravity strongly constrains large-field axion inflation

Abstract

Models of large-field inflation based on axion-like fields with shift symmetries can be simple and natural, and make a promising prediction of detectable primordial gravitational waves. The Weak Gravity Conjecture is known to constrain the simplest case in which a single compact axion descends from a gauge field in an extra dimension. We argue that the Weak Gravity Conjecture also constrains a variety of theories of multiple compact axions including N-flation and some alignment models. We show that other alignment models entail surprising consequences for how the mass spectrum of the theory varies across the axion moduli space, and hence can be excluded if further conjectures hold. In every case that we consider, plausible assumptions lead to field ranges that cannot be parametrically larger than the Planck scale. Our results are strongly suggestive of a general inconsistency in models of large-field inflation based on compact axions, and possibly of a more general principle forbidding super-Planckian field ranges.