NANOGrav signal from axion inflation

Abstract

Several pulsar timing arrays including NANOGrav, EPTA, PPTA, and CPTA have recently reported the observation of a stochastic background of gravitational wave spectrum in the nano-Hz frequencies. An inflationary interpretation of this observation is challenging from various aspects. We report that such a signal can arise from the Chern-Simons coupling in axion inflation, where a pseudoscalar inflaton couples to a (massive) $U(1)$ gauge field, leading to efficient production of a transverse gauge mode. Such tachyonic particle production during inflation exponentially enhances the primordial perturbations and leads to a unique parity-violating gravitational wave spectrum, that remains flat near the CMB scales but becomes blue-tilted at smaller scales. We identify the parameter space consistent with various cosmological constraints and show that the resultant gravitational wave signals can provide extra contribution on top of the standard astrophysical contribution from inspiraling supermassive black hole binaries towards explaining the observed excess at NANOGrav. The parity-violating nature of the signal can be probed in future interferometers, distinguishing it from most other new physics signals attempting to explain the NANOGrav result.