Axions on de Sitter space

Abstract

We study a massless minimally coupled compact scalar, or axion, on global $D$-dimensional de Sitter space (dS$_D$). We quantise the theory canonically, determine the quantum dS charges, and find that the axion zero mode supplies a quantum-mechanical factor beyond the oscillator Fock space, $\mathcal{F}$. The full Hilbert space is $\mathcal{H}=L^2(S^1)\otimes\mathcal{F}$, with the integer quantum-mechanical momentum on $L^2(S^1)$ identified with the conserved $\mathrm{U}(1)$ shift charge. The 1-particle unitary irreducible representation (UIR) of the dS group, $\mathrm{SO}(D,1)$, captures the oscillator sector, but misses the zero mode. We find that the neutral 0-particle state is dS-invariant and normalisable. Charged 0-particle states are normalisable, but only $\mathrm{SO}(D)$ invariant. This implies that geodesic observers related by dS boosts do not agree on the particle number in a charged sector, an effect absent in QFTs equipped only with the standard Bunch-Davies vacuum. We compute field-strength Wightman 2-point functions in charged sectors and find that they are Hadamard. For non-zero charge they are not dS-invariant at finite global times, but they are asymptotically so at early and late times. We complement this analysis with a Euclidean perspective. The ordinary $D$-sphere path integral, $Z_{S^D}$, written in terms of Harish-Chandra characters, has access only to the neutral sector. Charged sectors require vertex-operator insertions, and summing over them gives a decorated sphere path integral, $\widehat{Z}_{S^D}=Z_\text{QM}\,Z_{S^D}$, that captures the entire Hilbert space, with $Z_\text{QM}$ denoting the partition function of a quantum rotor at a dimension-dependent effective temperature. Finally, in dS$_3$, we use the duality between an axion and a photon to translate our results to electromagnetism, where the axion zero mode gives rise to magnetic monopoles.