Gauge Field Turbulence as a Cause of Inflation in Chern-Simons Modified Gravity

Abstract

In this paper, we study the dynamics of the Chern-Simons Inflation Model proposed by Alexander, Marciano and Spergel. According to this model, inflation begins when a fermion current interacts with a turbulent gauge field in a space larger than some critical size. This mechanism appears to work by driving energy from the initial random spectrum into a narrow band of frequencies, similar to the inverse energy cascade seen in MHD turbulence. In this work we focus on the dynamics of the interaction using phase diagrams and a thorough analysis of the evolution equations. We show that in this model inflation is caused by an over-damped harmonic oscillator driving waves in the gauge field at their resonance frequency.