A Monodromy from London
  We focus on the massive gauge theory formulation of axion monodromy
inflation. We argue that a gauge symmetry hidden in these models is the key
protection mechanism from dangerous corrections from both field theory and
gravitational dynamics. The effective theory of large field inflation is a dual
to a massive U(1) 4-form gauge theory, which is similar to a massive gauge
theory description of superconductivity. The gauge theory explicitly realizes
the old Julia-Toulouse proposal for a low energy description of a gauge theory
in a defect condensate. While we work mostly with the example of quadratic
axion potential induced by flux monodromy, we discuss how other types of
potentials can arise from inclusion of gauge invariant corrections to the
theory.
