Composite Hybrid Inflation: Dilaton and Waterfall Pions

We investigate the possibility that inflation originates from a composite field theory, in terms of an effective chiral Lagrangian involving a dilaton and pions. The walking dynamics of the theory constrain the potential in a specific way, where the anomalous dimensions of operators involving pions play a crucial role. For realistic values of the anomalous dimensions, we find a successful hybrid inflation occurring via the dilaton-inflaton, with the pions acting as waterfall fields. Compositeness consistency strongly constrain the model, predicting a dilaton scale $f_\chi \sim \mathcal{O} (1)$ in unit of the Planck scale, an inflation scale $H_\text{inf} \sim 10^{10}$ GeV, and the pion scale around $10^{14}$ GeV. We further discuss possible phenomenological consequences of this theory.