TY  - RPRT
AU  - Flauger, Raphael
AU  - McAllister, Liam
AU  - Silverstein, Eva
AU  - Westphal, Alexander
TI  - Drifting Oscillations in Axion Monodromy
IS  - SU/ITP-14/29
M1  - PUBDB-2014-04552
M1  - SU/ITP-14/29
M1  - SLAC-PUB-16165
M1  - DESY-14-225
M1  - arXiv:1412.1814
T2  - Red Report
SP  - 48
PY  - 2014
N1  - OA
AB  - We study the pattern of oscillations in the primordial power spectrum in axion monodromy inflation, accounting for drifts in the oscillation period that can be important for comparing to cosmological data. In these models the potential energy has a monomial form over a super-Planckian field range, with superimposed modulations whose size is model-dependent. The amplitude and frequency of the modulations are set by the expectation values of moduli fields. We show that during the course of inflation, the diminishing energy density can induce slow adjustments of the moduli, changing the modulations. We provide templates capturing the effects of drifting moduli, as well as drifts arising in effective field theory models based on softly broken discrete shift symmetries, and we estimate the precision required to detect a drifting period. A non-drifting template suffices over a wide range of parameters, but for the highest frequencies of interest, or for sufficiently strong drift, it is necessary to include parameters characterizing the change in frequency over the e-folds visible in the CMB. We use these templates to perform a preliminary search for drifting oscillations in a part of the parameter space in the Planck nominal mission data.
KW  - modulation: frequency (INSPIRE)
KW  - power spectrum: primordial (INSPIRE)
KW  - potential: energy (INSPIRE)
KW  - oscillation (INSPIRE)
KW  - moduli (INSPIRE)
KW  - inflation (INSPIRE)
KW  - monodromy (INSPIRE)
KW  - axion (INSPIRE)
KW  - cosmic background radiation (INSPIRE)
KW  - effective field theory (INSPIRE)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)15
UR  - https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/193123
ER  -