Extranatural Inflation Redux

The success of a given inflationary model crucially depends upon two features: its predictions for observables such as those of the Cosmic Microwave background (CMB) and its insensitivity to the unknown ultraviolet (UV) physics such as quantum gravitational effects. Extranatural inflation is a well motivated scenario which is insensitive to UV physics by construction. In this five dimensional model, the fifth dimension is compactified on a circle and the zero mode of the fifth component of a bulk $U(1)$ gauge field acts as the inflaton. In this work, we study simple variations of the minimal extranatural inflation model in order to improve its CMB predictions while retaining its numerous merits. We find that it is possible to obtain CMB predictions identical to those of e.g. ${\cal R} + {\cal R}^2$ Starobinsky model of inflation and show that this can be done in the most minimal way by having two additional extra light fermionic species in the bulk, with the same $U(1)$ charges. We then find the constraints that CMB observations impose on the parameters of the model.