2019/11/30 by Nayara Fonseca, Enrico Morgante, Ryosuke Sato +1 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-ph #astro-ph.CO #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep04(2020)010
29 pages and 17 figures in main text, 24 pages and 7 figures in appendices, v2: published version
arxiv created 2020/04/07 · arxiv updated 2021/11/24
We investigate the production of axion quanta during the early universe evolution of an axion-like field rolling down a wiggly potential. We compute the growth of quantum fluctuations and their back-reaction on the homogeneous zero-mode. We evaluate the transfer of kinetic energy from the zero mode to the quantum fluctuations and the conditions to decelerate the axion zero-mode as a function of the Hubble rate, the slope of the potential, the size of the barriers and the initial field velocity. We discuss how these effects impact the relaxion mechanism.