title: Photon mass from inflation.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Heidelberg University, Philosophenweg 16, Germany. T.Prokopec@thphys.uni-heidelberg.de
authors.forename: Tomislav
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Prokopec
authors.forename: Ola
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Törnkvist
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Woodard