Oscillating chiral tensor spectrum from axionic inflation

We study axionic inflation with a modulated potential and examine if the primordial tensor power spectrum exhibits oscillatory feature, which is testable with future space-based gravitational-wave experiments such as DECIGO and BBO. In the case of single-field axion monodromy inflation, it turns out that it is difficult to detect an oscillation in the spectrum due to the suppression of the sub-Planckian decay constant of the axion. On the other hand, in the case of aligned chromo-natural inflation where the axion is coupled to a SU(2) gauge field, it turns out that a sizable oscillation in the tensor spectrum can occur due to the enhancement of chiral gravitational waves sourced by the gauge field. We expect that this feature will be a new probe for axion phenomenologies in the early Universe through chiral gravitational waves.