A discrete gauge symmetry protecting the axion induces a large effective mass during inflation via a gauge-invariant PQ-violating operator, suppressing isocurvature fluctuations and addressing both quality and isocurvature issues.
Solving the Tension between High-Scale Inflation and Axion Isocurvature Perturbations
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abstract
The BICEP2 experiment determined the Hubble parameter during inflation to be about $10^{14}$ GeV. Such high inflation scale is in tension with the QCD axion dark matter if the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry remains broken during and after inflation, because too large axion isocurvature perturbations would be generated. The axion isocurvature perturbations can be suppressed if the axion acquires a sufficiently heavy mass during inflation. We show that this is realized if the PQ symmetry is explicitly broken down to a discrete symmetry and if the breaking is enhanced during inflation. We also show that, even when the PQ symmetry becomes spontaneously broken after inflation, such a temporarily enhanced PQ symmetry breaking relaxes the constraint on the axion decay constant.
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2026 2representative citing papers
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High-Quality Axion Dark Matter without Isocurvature Problem
A discrete gauge symmetry protecting the axion induces a large effective mass during inflation via a gauge-invariant PQ-violating operator, suppressing isocurvature fluctuations and addressing both quality and isocurvature issues.
- Isocurvature-Free QCD Axion Dark Matter from Inflaton-Driven Early QCD: the Necessity of Inflationary Plateaus