Related papers: Saving Natural Inflation
We propose a new inflation scenario in flux compactification, where a zero mode scalar field of extra components of the higher dimensional gauge field is identified with an inflaton. The scalar field is a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson of…
Warm natural inflation is studied for the case of the original cosine potential. The radiation bath during inflation induces a dissipation (friction) rate in the equation of motion for the inflaton field, which can potentially reduce the…
We critically examine the recent claim that the Standard Model Higgs boson ${\cal H}$ could drive inflation in agreement with observations if $|{\cal H}|^2$ has a strong coupling $\xi\sim 10^4$ to the Ricci curvature scalar. We first show…
We investigate characteristic features of realistic parameter choice for primordial inflation with supersymmetric Higgs inflaton as an example of particle physics inflation model. We discuss constraints from observational results and…
We study moduli stabilization in combination with inflation in heterotic orbifold compactifications in the light of a large Hubble scale and the favored tensor-to-scalar ratio $r \approx 0.05$. To account for a trans-Planckian field range…
We investigate models in which the inflaton emerges as a composite field of a four dimensional, strongly interacting and nonsupersymmetric gauge theory featuring purely fermionic matter. We show that it is possible to obtain successful…
Usual inflation is realized with a slow rolling scalar field minimally coupled to gravity. In contrast, we consider dynamics of a scalar with a flat effective potential, conformally coupled to gravity. Surprisingly, it contains an attractor…
The model of Natural Inflation is examined in light of recent 3-year data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and shown to provide a good fit. The inflaton potential is naturally flat due to shift symmetries, and in the simplest…
Natural inflation is a well-motivated model for the early universe in which an inflaton potential of the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone form, $V(\phi) = \Lambda^4[1 + \cos{(\phi/f)}]$, can naturally drive a cosmic accelerated epoch. This paper…
A model of inflation is proposed in which compact extra dimensions allow a graceful exit without recourse to flat potentials or super-Planckian field values. Though bubbles of true vacuum are too sparse to uniformly reheat the Universe by…
Motivated by trans-Planckian issues in inflation, we determine the Hilbert space and amplitudes of quantum perturbations in the general low-energy effective theory of (multi-)field inflation without relying on the sub-horizon limit. The…
The model of Natural Inflation is examined in light of recent 3-year data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and shown to provide a good fit. The inflaton potential is naturally flat due to shift symmetries, and in the simplest…
Bulk viscosity leads to negative pressure, which is a key ingredient for successful inflation. We build an inflationary model where the slow-roll of the inflaton field is driven by a viscous component instead of the flat potential commonly…
We propose a modification of the Natural Inflation (NI) potential in such a way that the spontaneous symmetry breaking scale $f$ can take values less than one (in Planck units). The proposed potential seems simple enough, however, its…
We consider the generation of large-scale magnetic fields in slow-roll inflation. The inflaton field is described in a supergravity framework where the conformal invariance of the electromagnetic field is generically and naturally broken.…
In this work, we analyze two possible alternative and model-independent approaches to describe the inflationary period. The first one assumes a general equation of state during inflation due to Mukhanov, while the second one is based on the…
In Aligned Natural Inflation, an alignment between different potential terms produces an inflaton excursion greater than the axion scales in the potential. We show that, starting from a general potential of two axions with two aligned…
We show how general initial conditions for small field inflation can be obtained in multi-field models. This is provided by non-linear angular friction terms in the inflaton that provide a phase of non-slow-roll inflation before the…
We show that initial conditions for small-field inflation can be determined quantum mechanically by introducing a suitable flattened region in the scalar potential. The inflaton is then driven towards the slow-roll attractor solution…
Motivated by the idea that inflation occurs at the GUT symmetry breaking scale, in this paper we construct a new class of large field inflaton potentials where the inflaton starts with a power law potential; after initial period of relative…