Large Non-Gaussianity in Axion Inflation

The inflationary paradigm has enjoyed phenomenological success; however, a compelling particle physics realization is still lacking. Axions are among the best-motivated inflaton candidates, since the flatness of their potential is naturally protected by a shift symmetry. We reconsider the cosmological perturbations in axion inflation, consistently accounting for the coupling to gauge fields c phi F (F) over tilde, which isgenerically present in these models. This coupling leads to production of gauge quanta, which provide a new source of inflaton fluctuations,delta phi. For c greater than or similar to 10(2)M(p)(-1), these dominate over the vacuum fluctuations, and non-Gaussianity exceeds the current observational bound. This regime is typical for concrete realizations that admit a UV completion; hence, large non-Gaussianity is easily obtained in minimal and natural realizations of inflation.