Gravitational perturbations from oscillons and transients after inflation

We study the scalar and tensor perturbations generated by the fragmentation of the inflaton condensate into oscillons or transients after inflation, using nonlinear classical lattice simulations. Without including the backreaction of metric perturbations, we find that the magnitude of scalar metric perturbations never exceeds a few $\times 10^{-3}$, whereas the maximal strength of the gravitational wave signal today is $\mathcal{O}(10^{-9})$ for standard post-inflationary expansion histories. We provide parameter scalings for the $\alpha$-attractor models of inflation, which can be easily applied to other models. We also discuss the likelihood of primordial black hole formation, as well as conditions under which the gravitational wave signal can be at observationally interesting frequencies and amplitudes. Finally, we provide an upper bound on the frequency of the peak of the gravitational wave signal, which applies to all preheating scenarios.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure

The charged inflaton and its gauge fields: preheating and initial conditions for reheating

We calculate particle production during inflation and in the early stages of reheating after inflation in models with a charged scalar field coupled to Abelian and non-Abelian gauge fields. A detailed analysis of the power spectra of primordial electric fields, magnetic fields and charge fluctuations at the end of inflation and preheating is provided. We carefully account for the Gauss constraints during inflation and preheating, and clarify the role of the longitudinal components of the electric field. We calculate the timescale for the back-reaction of the produced gauge fields on the inflaton condensate, marking the onset of non-linear evolution of the fields. We provide a prescription for initial conditions for lattice simulations necessary to capture the subsequent nonlinear dynamics. On the observational side, we find that the primordial magnetic fields generated are too small to explain the origin of magnetic fields on galactic scales and the charge fluctuations are well within observational bounds for the models considered in this paper.Comment: 48 pages, 6 figures, 2 appendices, v3: references added, minor changes to text, to appear in JCA

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

Axion anomalies

We study fermions derivatively coupled to axion-like or pseudoscalar fields, and show that the axial vector current of the fermions is not conserved in the limit where the fermion is massless. This apparent violation of the classical chiral symmetry is due to the background axion field. We compute the contributions to this anomalous Ward identity due to the pseudoscalar field alone, which arise in Minkowski space, as well as the effects due to an interaction with an external gravitational field. For the case of massless fermions, these interactions induce terms in the axion effective action that can be removed by the addition of local counterterms. We demonstrate that these counterterms are generated by the transformation of the path integral measure when transforming the theory from a form where the chiral symmetry is manifest to one where the symmetry is only apparent after using the classical equations of motion. We work perturbatively in Minkowski space and include the effects of interactions with a linearized gravitational field. Using the heat kernel method, we study the transformation properties of the path integral measure, and include the effects of non-linear gravity as well as interactions with gauge fields. Finally, we verify our relation by considering derivatively coupled fermions during pseudoscalar-driven inflation and computing the divergence of the axial current in de Sitter spacetime.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures. Includes minor changes clarifying the phenomenological implications of the result

Universal Gravitational Wave Signatures of Cosmological Solitons

Cosmological solitonic objects such as monopoles, cosmic strings, domain walls, oscillons and Q-balls often appear in theories of the early Universe. We demonstrate that such scenarios are generically accompanied by a novel production source of gravitational waves stemming from soliton isocurvature perturbations. The resulting induced universal gravitational waves (UGWs) reside at lower frequencies compared to gravitational waves typically associated with soliton formation. We show that UGWs from axion-like particle (ALP) oscillons, originating from ALP misalignment, extend the frequency range of produced gravitational waves by more than two orders of magnitude regardless of the ALP mass and decay constant and can be observable in upcoming gravitational wave experiments. UGWs open a new route for gravitational wave signatures in broad classes of cosmological theories.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Production and backreaction of massive fermions during axion inflation with non-Abelian gauge fields

We study the production and backreaction of massive vector-like fermions in the background of a classical SU(2) gauge field during axion-driven inflation. We demonstrate all ultraviolet divergences due to the interactions with the fermions can be absorbed by renormalization of the axion wavefunction and the gauge coupling. The effects of the fermion-axion interaction vanish in the massless limit as required by symmetry. For very massive fermions, contact interactions are induced between the axion, the gauge field and the gravitational field. In this massive limit, we find the usual axion-gauge field interactions are induced, however, in addition we observe the appearance of axion self-interactions, as well as kinetic braiding of the axion with the Einstein tensor. These new axion derivative interactions present intriguing opportunities for model building and phenomenology.Comment: 45 pages, 3 figure