English

Ricci Subtraction for Cosmological Coleman-Weinberg Potentials

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2019-11-13 v2

Abstract

We reconsider the fine-tuning problem of scalar-driven inflation arising from the need to couple the inflaton to ordinary matter in order to make reheating efficient. Quantum fluctuations of this matter induce Coleman-Weinberg corrections to the inflaton potential, depending (for de Sitter background) in a complex way on the ratio of the inflaton to the Hubble parameter. These corrections are not Planck-suppressed and cannot be completely subtracted because they are not even local for a general geometry. A previous study showed that it is not satisfactory to subtract a local function of just the inflaton and the {\it initial} Hubble parameter. This paper examines the other allowed possibility of subtracting a local function of the inflaton and the Ricci scalar. The problem in this case is that the new, scalar degree of freedom induced by the subtraction causes inflation to end almost instantly.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.05558,
  title  = {Ricci Subtraction for Cosmological Coleman-Weinberg Potentials},
  author = {S. P. Miao and S. Park and R. P. Woodard},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.05558},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

17 pages, 4 figures, uses LaTeX2e. A follow-up to arXiv:1506.07306 and arXiv:1806.02533. Minor revisions made for publication

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:48:17.332Z