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We study the pattern of oscillations in the primordial power spectrum in axion monodromy inflation, accounting for drifts in the oscillation period that can be important for comparing to cosmological data. In these models the potential…
Based on the flux-scaling scenario we study a model consisting on Type IIB string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold with a frozen complex structure in the presence of generic fluxes. The model contains (meta)stable Minkowski and…
Recent models of axion monodromy inflation in string theory link the inflationary potential and the moduli stabilization potential. Realistic inflationary models require mechanisms to moderately suppress the inflaton mass with respect to…
We show that a moduli space of the form predicted by string theory, lifted by supersymmetry breaking, gives rise to successful inflation for large regions of parameter space without any modification or fine tuning. This natural realization…
The construction of meta-stable four-dimensional de Sitter vacua in type IIB string compactifications represents an important question and an ongoing area of work. There is considerable support both for stringy de Sitter vacua in the…
Moduli fields, which parameterize perturbative flat directions of the potential in supersymmetric theories, are natural candidates to act as inflatons. An inflationary potential on moduli space can result if the scale of dynamical SUSY…
We consider type IIB flux compactifications on six-dimensional SU(2)-structure manifolds with O5- and O7-planes. These six-dimensional spaces allow not only for F_3 and H_3 fluxes but also for F_1 and F_5 fluxes. We derive the…
We study the conditions needed to have an early epoch of inflationary expansion with a potential coming from IIB superstring theory with fluxes involving two moduli fields. The phenomenology of this potential is different from the usual…
We argue that in type IIB LVS string models, after including the leading order moduli stabilisation effects, the moduli space for the remaining flat directions is compact due the Calabi-Yau K\"ahler cone conditions. In cosmological…
We study string inspired two-field models of large-field inflation based on axion monodromy in the presence of an interacting heavier modulus. This class of models has enough structure to approximate at least part of the backreaction…
We study moduli stabilization for type IIB orientifolds compactified on Calabi-Yau threefolds in the region close to conifold singularities in the complex structure moduli space. The form of the periods implies new phenomena like…
It has recently been appreciated that the conifold modulus plays an important role in string-phenomenological set-ups involving warped throats, both by imposing constraints on model building and for obtaining a 10-dimensional picture of…
Axion monodromy models can always be described in terms of an axion coupled to 3-form gauge fields with non-canonical kinetic terms. The presence of the saxions parametrising the kinetic metrics of the 3-form fields leads to backreaction…
We continue the development of axion monodromy inflation, focussing in particular on the backreaction of complex structure moduli. In our setting, the shift symmetry comes from a partial large complex structure limit of the underlying type…
The discovery of a large tensor-to-scalar ratio by the BICEP2 experiment points to large field excursions during inflation. One framework that predicts large $r$ is monodromy inflation. While discussed mainly in the context of string…
Wrapped branes in string compactifications introduce a monodromy that extends the field range of individual closed-string axions to beyond the Planck scale. Furthermore, approximate shift symmetries of the system naturally control…
We analyze string-theoretic large-field inflation in the regime of spontaneously-broken supergravity with conventional moduli stabilization by fluxes and non-perturbative effects. The main ingredient is a shift-symmetric Kahler potential,…
The unwinding inflation mechanism is studied in a type IIB flux compactification where all moduli are stabilized using flux, non-perturbative effects, and the leading alpha' corrections of the large volume scenario. We consider the…
We study the dynamics of axion-like fields in F-theory and suggest that they can serve as inflatons in models of natural inflation. The axions arise from harmonic three-forms on the F-theory compactification space and parameterize a complex…
Natural inflation relies on the existence of an axion decay constant which is super-Planckian. In string theory only sub-Planckian axion decay constants have been found in any controlled regime. However in field theory it is possible to…