Related papers: Modulated Natural Inflation
We propose a model for large field inflation in heterotic string theory. The construction applies the near alignment mechanism of Kim, Nilles, and Peloso. By including gaugino condensates and world-sheet instanton non-perturbative effects,…
Slow-roll inflation is a successful paradigm. However we find that even a small coupling of the inflaton to other light fields can dramatically alter the dynamics and predictions of inflation. As an example, the inflaton can generically…
We briefly summarize the impact of the recent Planck measurements for string inflationary models, and outline what might be expected to be learned in the near future from the expected improvement in sensitivity to the primordial…
We consider gravitational wave production during inflation in type IIB string theory, and the possibility of observable gravitational waves in small field inflation. We show that the gauge field excitations on a set of coincident D7 branes,…
We investigate the effect of non-canonical kinetic terms on inflation in supergravity. We find that the biggest impact of such higher-derivative kinetic terms is due to the corrections to the potential that they induce via their effect on…
Chromo-natural inflation is a novel model of inflation which relies on the existence of non-abelian gauge fields interacting with an axion. In its simplest realization, an SU(2) gauge field is assumed to begin inflation in a rotationally…
We revisit models of natural inflation and show that the single-field effective theory described by the potential $V(a)\sim \cos\frac{a}{f}$ breaks down as the inflaton $a$ makes large-field excursions, even for values of $f$ smaller than…
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…
We discuss string corrections to the effective potential in various models of brane inflation. These corrections contribute to the mass of the inflaton candidate and may improve its slow-roll properties. In particular, in orientifold string…
We show that double inflation is naturally realized in K\"ahler moduli inflation, which is caused by moduli associated with string compactification. We find that there is a small coupling between the two inflatons which leads to…
We analyze a distinctive mechanism for inflation in which particle production slows down a scalar field on a steep potential, and show how it descends from angular moduli in string compactifications. The analysis of density perturbations --…
In most current models of inflation based on a weakly self-coupled scalar matter field minimally coupled to gravity, the period of inflation lasts so long that, at the beginning of the inflationary period, the physical wavelengths of…
A framework of inflation is formulated based on symmetry groups and their associated automorphic functions. In this setting the inflaton multiplet takes values in a curved target space constructed from a continuous group $G$ and a discrete…
We study multifield contributions to the scalar power spectrum in an ensemble of six-field inflationary models obtained in string theory. We identify examples in which inflation occurs by chance, near an approximate inflection point, and we…
We show that simple strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theories with quantum moduli spaces can naturally lead to hybrid inflation. These theories contain no input dimensionful or small parameters. The effective superpotential is linear…
Open inflation scenario is attracting a renewed interest in the context of string landscape. Since there are a large number of metastable de Sitter vacua in string landscape, tunneling transitions to lower metastable vacua through the…
Supersymmetry is the most natural framework for physics above the TeV scale, and the corresponding framework for early-Universe cosmology, including inflation, is supergravity. No-scale supergravity emerges from generic string…
We investigate the possibility that fields coupled to the inflaton can influence the primordial spectrum of density perturbations through their coherent motion. For example, the second field in hybrid inflation might be oscillating at the…
Inflationary scenarios in string theory often involve a large number of light scalar fields, whose presence can enrich the post-inflationary evolution of primordial fluctuations generated during the inflationary epoch. We provide a simple…
Power spectra always play an important role in the theory of inflation. In particular, the ability to reproduce the galaxy matter power spectrum and the CMB temperature angular power spectrum coefficients to high accuracy is often…