# Charged Vector Inflation

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a charged vector inflation model where gauge fields contribute to the inflationary dynamics, affecting scalar and tensor perturbations, with implications for primordial gravitational waves.

## Contribution

The model uniquely combines charged gauge fields with inflation, maintaining isotropy and analyzing their impact on perturbation spectra and gravitational waves.

## Key findings

- Gauge fields form a small constant energy fraction during inflation.
- Gauge coupling influences the tensor power spectrum correction.
- Scalar perturbations include adiabatic and entropy modes with gauge field contributions.

## Abstract

We present a model of inflation in which the inflaton field is charged under a triplet of $U(1)$ gauge fields. The model enjoys an internal $O(3)$ symmetry supporting the isotropic FRW solution. With an appropriate coupling between the gauge fields and the inflaton field, the system reaches an attractor regime in which the gauge fields furnish a small constant fraction of the total energy density. We decompose the scalar perturbations into the adiabatic and entropy modes and calculate the contributions of the gauge fields into the curvature perturbations power spectrum. We also calculate the entropy power spectrum and the adiabatic-entropy cross correlation. In addition to the metric tensor perturbations, there are tensor perturbations associated with the gauge field perturbations which are coupled to metric tensor perturbations. We show that the correction in primordial gravitational tensor power spectrum induced from the matter tensor perturbation is a sensitive function of the gauge coupling.