Winding out of the Swamp: Evading the weak gravity conjecture with F-term winding inflation?

We present a new model of large field inflation along a winding trajectory in the field space of two axionic fields, where the “axions” originate from the complex structure moduli sector of a Calabi–Yau 3-fold at large complex structure. The winding trajectory arises from fixing one combination of axions by bulk fluxes and allows for a transplanckian effective field range. The inflaton potential arises from small “instantonic” corrections to the geometry and realises natural inflation. By working in a regime of large complex structure for two complex structure moduli the inflaton potential can be made subdominant without severe tuning. We also discuss the impact of the recent ‘no-go theorems’ for transplanckian axion periodicities on our work. Interestingly, our setup seems to realise a loophole pointed out in arXiv:1503.00795 and arXiv:1503.04783: our construction is a candidate for a string theory model of large field inflation which is consistent with the mild form of the weak gravity conjecture for axions.