Dynamical de Sitter phase and nontrivial holonomy in strongly coupled gauge theories in expanding Universe

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel quantum-driven mechanism for the emergence of inflationary de Sitter phase in the early universe, based on topologically nontrivial sectors in strongly coupled gauge theories, with potential experimental tests.

Contribution

It introduces a new scenario where inflation arises dynamically from topological effects in gauge theories, not from scalar fields, and provides explicit computations and phenomenological implications.

Findings

De Sitter phase emerges from topological gauge dynamics.

Nontrivial holonomy is essential for the effect.

Potential tabletop experiments to test the theory.

Abstract

We discuss a new scenario for early cosmology when the inflationary de Sitter phase emerges dynamically. This genuine quantum effect occurs as a result of dynamics of the topologically nontrivial sectors in a strongly coupled QCD- like gauge theory in an expanding universe. We test these ideas by explicit computations in hyperbolic space $ \mathbb{H}^3_{\kappa}\times \mathbb{S}^1_{\kappa^{-1}}$. We argue that the key element for this idea to work is the presence of nontrivial holonomy computed along $\mathbb{S}^1_{\kappa^{-1}}$. The effect is non-local in nature, non-analytical in coupling constant and can not be described in terms of any local propagating degree of freedom such as scalar inflaton field $\Phi(x)$. We discuss some profound phenomenological consequences of this scenario for inflationary cosmology. We also suggest to test these ideas in a tabletop experiment by measuring some specific corrections to the Casimir pressure in the Maxwell theory formulated on a topologically nontrivial manifold.