A Monodromy from London

TL;DR

This paper explores how a hidden gauge symmetry in massive gauge theories related to axion monodromy inflation provides protection against corrections, with implications for large field inflation models.

Contribution

It demonstrates that a gauge symmetry in massive U(1) 4-form theories safeguards axion monodromy inflation from destabilizing corrections, connecting to superconductivity and defect condensates.

Findings

Gauge symmetry protects inflation models from corrections.

Duality between large field inflation and massive gauge theories.

Potential for various inflationary potentials from gauge invariant corrections.

Abstract

We focus on the massive gauge theory formulation of axion monodromy inflation. We argue that a gauge symmetry hidden in these models is the key protection mechanism from dangerous corrections from both field theory and gravitational dynamics. The effective theory of large field inflation is a dual to a massive U(1) 4-form gauge theory, which is similar to a massive gauge theory description of superconductivity. The gauge theory explicitly realizes the old Julia-Toulouse proposal for a low energy description of a gauge theory in a defect condensate. While we work mostly with the example of quadratic axion potential induced by flux monodromy, we discuss how other types of potentials can arise from inclusion of gauge invariant corrections to the theory.