  We consider cosmological applications of a new self-consistent system of
equations, accounting for a nonminimal coupling of the gravitational,
electromagnetic and pseudoscalar (axion) fields in a relativistic plasma. We
focus on dispersion relations for electromagnetic perturbations in an initially
isotropic ultrarelativistic plasma coupled to the gravitational and axion
fields in the framework of isotropic homogeneous cosmological model of the de
Sitter type. We classify the longitudinal and transversal electromagnetic modes
in an axionically active plasma and distinguish between waves (damping,
instable or running), and nonharmonic perturbations (damping or instable). We
show that for the special choice of the guiding model parameters the
transversal electromagnetic waves in the axionically active plasma,
nonminimally coupled to gravity, can propagate with the phase velocity less
than speed of light in vacuum, thus displaying a possibility for a new type of
resonant particle-wave interactions.
