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Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 101301 (2002) [4 pages]

Photon Mass from Inflation

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Tomislav Prokopec*
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Heidelberg University, Philosophenweg 16, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany

Ola Törnkvist†
Theoretical Physics Group, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom

Richard Woodard‡
Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611

Received 29 May 2002; published 15 August 2002

See accompanying Physics Focus

We consider vacuum polarization from massless scalar electrodynamics in de Sitter inflation. The theory exhibits a 3+1 dimensional analog of the Schwinger mechanism in which a photon mass is dynamically generated. The mechanism is generic for light scalar fields that couple minimally to gravity. The nonvanishing of the photon mass during inflation may result in magnetic fields on cosmological scales.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.101301
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.101301
PACS:
98.80.Cq, 04.62.+v, 98.80.Hw

*Electronic address: T.Prokopec@thphys.uni-heidelberg.de

†Electronic address: o.tornkvist@ic.ac.uk

‡Electronic address: woodard@phys.ufl.edu

 
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