Related papers: A no-go theorem for monodromy inflation

We establish a no-go theorem in the context of string and M-theory flux compactifications on Riemann-Flat manifolds with Casimir energy. Specifically, we show that no dS minimum exists in this setup in dimension $d>3$. The case of dS$_3$…

Cosmological inflation is studied in the case where the inflaton is the overall modulus $T$ for an orbifold. General forms of the (non-perturbative) superpotential are considered to ensure that $G=K+{\rm ln}|W|^2$ is modular invariant. We…

Large field inflation is arguably the simplest and most natural variant of slow-roll inflation. Axion monodromy may be the most promising framework for realising this scenario. As one of its defining features, the long-range polynomial…

Flux couplings to string theory axions yield super-Planckian field ranges along which the axion potential energy grows. At the same time, other aspects of the physics remain essentially unchanged along these large displacements, respecting…

We present a simple mechanism for obtaining large-field inflation, and hence a gravitational wave signature, from string theory compactified on twisted tori. For Nil manifolds, we obtain a leading inflationary potential proportional to…

We show that without introducing additional fields or extra degrees of freedom, a specific higher derivative extension of Einstein's gravity that has only a massless spin-2 excitation in its perturbative spectrum, has an inflationary…

We argue that, under certain plausible assumptions, de Sitter space settles into a quiescent vacuum in which there are no dynamical quantum fluctuations. Such fluctuations require either an evolving microstate, or time-dependent histories…

We construct inflationary models in the context of supergravity with orthogonal nilpotent superfields [1]. When local supersymmetry is gauge-fixed in the unitary gauge, these models describe theories with only a single real scalar (the…

We address some issues of topological defect inflation. (1) We clarify the causal structure of an inflating magnetic monopole. The spacetime diagram shows explicitly that this model is free from the ``graceful exit'' problem, while the…

We investigate infrared dynamics of four-dimensional Einstein gravity in de Sitter space. We set up a general framework to investigate dynamical scaling relations in quantum/classical gravitational theories. The conformal mode dependence of…

We consider the compactification of (d+n)-dimensional pure gravity and of superstring/M-theory on an n-dimensional internal space to a d-dimensional FLRW cosmology, with spatial curvature k=-1,0,+1, in Einstein conformal frame. The internal…

Supersymmetric versions of induced-gravity inflation are formulated within Supergravity (SUGRA) employing two gauge singlet chiral superfields. The proposed superpotential is uniquely determined by applying a continuous R and a discrete Z_n…

Based on random matrix theory, we compute the likelihood of saddles and minima in a class of random potentials that are softly bounded from above and below, as required for the validity of low energy effective theories. Imposing this bound…

It is shown that the squeezed limit of inflationary expectation values follows from reparametrization invariance of the wavefunction of the universe. This translates into a constraint on the longitudinal modes of functional derivatives of…

We develop a method for constructing metastable de Sitter vacua in N=1 supergravity models describing the no-scale volume moduli sector of Calabi-Yau string compactifications. We consider both heterotic and orientifold models. Our main…

We consider cosmological inflation generated by a scalar field slowly rolling off from a de Sitter maximum of its potential. The models belong to the class of hilltop models and represent the most general model of this kind in which the…

Theories with compact extra dimensions are sometimes unstable to decay into a bubble of nothing -- an instability resulting in the destruction of spacetime. We investigate the existence of these bubbles in theories where the moduli fields…

We investigate chaotic inflation models with two scalar fields, such that one field (the inflaton) rolls while the other is trapped in a false vacuum state. The false vacuum becomes unstable when the inflaton field falls below some critical…

We construct analytic and numerical solutions of the Fokker-Planck equation that arises in the context of stochastic inflation. We use these solutions to derive necessary conditions for eternal inflation on the higher derivatives of the…

We investigate when effective theories of a scalar field on (quasi-)de Sitter background break down through the stochastic formalism. We derive the Fokker-Planck equation leaving the second order time derivative of the scalar field.…