Ultraviolet Sensitivity of Peccei-Quinn Inflation

Abstract

The radial direction of the Peccei--Quinn field can drive cosmic inflation, given a non-minimal coupling to gravity. This scenario has been considered to simultaneously explain inflation, the strong $CP$ problem, and dark matter. We argue that Peccei--Quinn inflation is extremely sensitive to higher-dimensional operators. Further combining with the discussion on the axion quality required for solving the strong $CP$ problem, we examine the validity of this scenario. We also show that after Peccei--Quinn inflation, resonant amplifications of the field fluctuation is inevitably triggered.

Comments: 26 pages plus appendices, 9 figures. v2: New appendix C, refs added . v3: Match with published version