Photon Chiral Memory Effect Stored on Celestial Sphere

This work introduces the chiral memory effect on the celestial sphere that measures the permanent change of electromagnetic fields by spin-dependent processes in bulk. Unlike the conventional memory effect based on the permanent soft shift in the gauge field itself, it is a permanent change in its spin angular momentum. The concept underlying the chiral memory (conventional memory) effect is optical spin torque (optical force) induction in bulk. Photons and EM radiation carry angular momentum, which is conserved without interactions. Chiral interactions with matter, medium, curvature, and theories with parity violation, i.e., axion-QED, transfers spin angular momentum to EM fields. In nature, such phenomena occur either on EM radiation (chiral memory) or in the vacuum of QED (vacuum chiral memory). It can be parametrized in terms of the photon's topological (axial) current at null infinity. To elude the gauge ambiguity of the topological current, we use the transverse gauge and show it is the physical part of the current suggested by its cohomology structure.Comment: 23+5 pages, 6 Fig

Dark Fermions and Spontaneous CPCP violation in SU(2)SU(2)-axion Inflation

Remarkably, if $CP$ was spontaneously broken in the physics of inflation, fermions would notice and remember it. Based on that, we present a new (non-thermal) mechanism for generating self-interacting dark Dirac fermions prior to the Hot Big Bang. The non-Abelian gauge fields and axions are well-motivated matter contents for the particle physics of inflation. In this background, we analytical study Dirac fermion doublets charged under the $SU(2)$ gauge field and use point-splitting technique to regularize the currents. We show that the non-trivial $CP$-violating vacuum structure of $SU(2)$-axion models naturally leads to an efficient mechanism for generating massive fermions during inflation. The size of the fermionic backreaction and the density fraction of dark fermions put upper bounds on the fermion's mass. For a GUT scale inflation, the generated dark fermions, only gravitationally coupled to the visible sector, can be as heavy as $m\lesssim 10 TeV$.Comment: 58 pages, 21 figures, V2: minor corrections and references adde

Chiral Anomaly in SU(2)R{}_R-Axion Inflation and the New Prediction for Particle Cosmology

Upon embedding the axion-inflation in the minimal left-right symmetric gauge extension of the SM with gauge group $SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{B-L}$, [arXiv:2012.11516] proposed a new particle physics model for inflation. In this work, we present a more detailed analysis. As a compelling consequence, this setup provides a new mechanism for simultaneous baryogenesis and right-handed neutrino creation by the chiral anomaly of $W_R$ in inflation. The lightest right-handed neutrino is the dark matter candidate. This setup has two unknown fundamental scales, i.e., the scale of inflation and left-right symmetry breaking $SU(2)_R\times U(1)_{B-L}\rightarrow U(1)_{Y}$. Sufficient matter creation demands the left-right symmetry breaking scale happens shortly after the end of inflation. Interestingly, it prefers left-right symmetry breaking scales above $10^{10}~GeV$, which is in the range suggested by the non-supersymmetric SO(10) Grand Unified Theory with an intermediate left-right symmetry scale. Although $W_R$ gauge field generates equal amounts of right-handed baryons and leptons in inflation, i.e. $B-L=0$, in the Standard Model sub-sector $B-L_{SM}\neq 0$. A key aspect of this setup is that $SU(2)_R$ sphalerons are never in equilibrium, and the primordial $B-L_{SM}$ is conserved by the Standard Model interactions. This setup yields a deep connection between CP violation in physics of inflation and matter creation (visible and dark); hence it can naturally explain the observed coincidences among cosmological parameters, i.e., $\eta_{B}\simeq 0.3 P_{\zeta}$ and $\Omega_{DM}\simeq 5\Omega_{B}$. The $SU(2)_R$-axion inflation comes with a cosmological smoking gun; chiral, non-Gaussian, and blue-tilted gravitational wave background, which can be probed by future CMB missions and laser interferometer detectors.Comment: 28+20 Pages, 15 Fig

Production and Backreaction of Fermions from Axion-SU(2)SU(2) Gauge Fields during Inflation

$SU(2)$ gauge fields and axions can have a stable, isotropic and homogeneous configuration during inflation. However, couplings to other matter species lead to particle production, which in turn induces backreaction on and destabilization of the non-abelian and axion background. In this paper, we first study the particle production by a $SU(2)$ gauge field coupled to a massive Dirac doublet. To carry out this calculation we have made two technical improvements compared to what has been done in the literature. First, we apply the anti-symmetrization of the operators to treat particles and anti-particles on equal footing, second, to deal with the UV divergences, we apply instantaneous subtraction. We find that, the backreaction of produced fermions on the $SU(2)$ background is negligible for model parameters of observational interest. Next, we consider production of fermions due to coupling to the axion. The tree-level backreaction on the gauge fields, as well as on the axion, is vanishingly small. We also provide an estimate for the loop effects.Comment: Matches version accepted for publication in PR

How attractive is the isotropic attractor solution of axion-SU(2) inflation?

The key to the phenomenological success of inflation models with axion and SU(2) gauge fields is the isotropic background of the SU(2) field. Previous studies showed that this isotropic background is an attractor solution during inflation starting from anisotropic (Bianchi Type I) spacetime; however, not all possible initial anisotropic parameter space was explored. In this paper, we explore more generic initial conditions without assuming the initial slow-roll dynamics. We find some initial anisotropic parameter space which does not lead to the isotropic background, but to violation of slow-roll conditions, terminating inflation prematurely. The basin of attraction increases when we introduce another scalar field acting as inflaton and make the axion-SU(2) system a spectator sector. Therefore, the spectator axion-SU(2) model is phenomenologically more attractive.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures. Updated to version accepted by JCA