Bifurcations of a soliton model of dark matter towards natural inflation

• Main Author: Eckehard W. Mielke
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-08-01
• Series: Physics Letters B
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269320303427

Axion-like scalar fields with a periodic potential provide a solitonic model of dark matter halos of galaxies. Here we point out that their stability analysis bridges over, via bifurcations, to natural inflation. Then the (pseudo-) scalar part of the Lagrangian can be mapped into a gravity model mildly nonlinear in the scalar curvature. In the case of an axionic periodic potential, the equivalent Lagrangian L(R) exhibits a combination of swallow tail cusps with transitions of stability, well-known from catastrophe theory. The resulting almost Einsteinian branches indicate a ‘unification’ of dark matter, dark energy and inflation.