Anisotropic Inflation from Charged Scalar Fields

TL;DR

This paper explores models of anisotropic inflation involving charged scalar and gauge fields, revealing attractor solutions with significant anisotropies and effects on inflation dynamics, preheating, and non-Gaussianities.

Contribution

It introduces new inflation models with charged scalar fields and gauge fields, analyzing their anisotropic attractor solutions and impact on inflationary processes.

Findings

Existence of attractor solutions with anisotropies comparable to slow-roll parameters.

Charged scalar fields cause gauge fields to oscillate rapidly at inflation's end.

Gauge field evolution significantly influences hybrid inflation's waterfall transition.

Abstract

We consider models of inflation with U(1) gauge fields and charged scalar fields including symmetry breaking potential, chaotic inflation and hybrid inflation. We show that there exist attractor solutions where the anisotropies produced during inflation becomes comparable to the slow-roll parameters. In the models where the inflaton field is a charged scalar field the gauge field becomes highly oscillatory at the end of inflation ending inflation quickly. Furthermore, in charged hybrid inflation the onset of waterfall phase transition at the end of inflation is affected significantly by the evolution of the background gauge field. Rapid oscillations of the gauge field and its coupling to inflaton can have interesting effects on preheating and non-Gaussianities.