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arXiv · 2110.10822

Gauge Field Production and Schwinger Reheating in Runaway Axion Inflation

Soichiro Hashiba·Kohei Kamada·Hiromasa Nakatsuka
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Abstract

In a class of (pseudoscalar) inflation, inflationary phase is followed by a kination phase, where the Universe is dominated by the kinetic energy of the inflaton that runs away in a vanishing scalar potential. In this class of postinflationary evolution of the Universe, reheating of the Universe cannot be achieved by the inflaton particle decay, which requires its coherent oscillation in a quadratic potential. In this study, we explore the U(1) gauge field production through the Chern-Simons coupling between the pseudoscalar inflaton and the gauge field during the kination era and examine the subsequent pair-particle production induced by the amplified gauge field known as the Schwinger effect, which can lead to reheating of the Universe. We find that with a rough estimate of the Schwinger effect for the Standard Model hyper U(1) gauge field and subsequent thermalization of the pair-produced particles, a successful reheating of the Universe can be achieved by their eventual domination over the kinetic energy of the inflaton, with some reasonable parameter sets. This can be understood as a concrete realization of the "Schwinger reheating". Constraints from the later-time cosmology are also discussed.

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Soichiro Hashiba, Kohei Kamada, Hiromasa Nakatsuka. 2021-10-20. Gauge Field Production and Schwinger Reheating in Runaway Axion Inflation. https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516%2F2022%2F04%2F058

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