Oscillons from Pure Natural Inflation

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation of localized oscillons during pure natural inflation, an axion-based model, highlighting conditions for their creation and discussing potential observational signatures.

Contribution

It demonstrates that oscillons can form in pure natural inflation models with specific decay constants, expanding understanding of post-inflationary dynamics.

Findings

Oscillons form for decay constants F less than approximately 0.1 times the Planck mass.

The inflaton potential's plateau facilitates inflaton fragmentation and oscillon production.

Potential observational implications of oscillons are discussed.

Abstract

We examine the oscillon formation in a recently proposed inflation model of the pure natural inflation, where the inflaton is an axion that couples to a strongly-coupled pure Yang-Mills theory. The plateau of the inflaton potential, which is favored by recent observations, drives the fragmentation of the inflaton and can produce spatially localized oscillons. We find that the oscillons are formed for F<~ O(0.1) M_{Pl}, with F the effective decay constant of the model. We also comment on observational implications of the oscillons.