Chromonatural warm inflation

Abstract

Chromonatural inflation is a model where non-Abelian gauge fields are sustained by the coupling of the axion with the gauge field through the Chern-Simons term, while minimal warm inflation is a model where the axion produces a thermal bath of non-Abelian gauge particles through the Chern-Simons term. Since both axion inflation models are based on the same action, a natural question is if they are compatible or not. We study axion inflation with the Chern-Simons term and find that chromonatural inflation can accommodate radiation with a temperature much larger than the Hubble parameter during inflation, which is a characteristic feature of warm inflation. Thus, we conclude that chromonatural warm inflation exists, which must have phenomenologically interesting consequences. Published by the American Physical Society 2024