Related papers: Sequestered Inflation
We study inflation driven by a slow-rolling inflaton field, characterised by a quadratic potential, and incorporating radiative corrections within the context of supergravity. In this model the energy scale of inflation is not overly…
Theories where the Planck scale is dynamically generated from dimensionless interactions provide predictive inflationary potentials and super-Planckian field variations. We first study the minimal single-field realisation in the low-energy…
We investigate the viability of a two-stage inflationary scenario in the context of supergravity, so as to resolve the problem of initial conditions for hybrid inflation. We allow for non-renormalizable terms in the superpotential and…
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…
The ${\cal R}^2$ scale invariant gravity theory coupled to conformally invariant matter is investigated. We show that in the non-supersymmetric case the conformally coupled scalars belong to an $SO(1, 1+n)/SO(1+n)$ manifold, while in the…
We propose an inflationary scenario, M-flation, in which inflation is driven by three $N\times N$ hermitian matrices $\Phi_i, i=1,2,3$. The inflation potential of our model, which is strongly motivated from string theory, is constructed…
It is sometimes argued that observation of tensor modes from inflation would provide the first evidence for quantum gravity. However, in the usual inflationary formalism, also the scalar modes involve quantised metric perturbations. We…
After reviewing the motivations for cosmological inflation formulated in the formalism of supersymmetry, we argue that the appropriate framework is that of no-scale supergravity. We then show how to construct within this framework…
We show how we can implement chaotic inflation in the context of supergravity by conveniently selecting the functional form of a strong enough non-minimal coupling between the inflaton and the Ricci scalar curvature. The procedure can be…
We propose new supergravity models describing chaotic Linde- and Starobinsky-like inflation in terms of a single chiral superfield. The key ideas to obtain a positive vacuum energy during large field inflation are (i) stabilization of the…
We study N=1 Supergravity inflation in the context of the braneworld scenario. Particular attention is paid to the problem of the onset of inflation at sub-Planckian field values and the ensued inflationary observables. We find that the…
The positive potential energy required for inflation spontaneously breaks supersymmetry and in general gives any would-be inflaton an effective mass of order the inflationary Hubble parameter thus ruling it out as an inflaton. In this paper…
In this paper we consider inflation as a probe of new physics near the string or Planck scale. We discuss how new physics can be captured by the choice of vacuum, and how this leads to modifications of the primordial spectrum as well as the…
A second order pole in the scalar kinetic term can lead to a class of inflation models with universal predictions referred to as pole inflation or $\alpha$-attractors. While this kinetic structure is ubiquitous in supergravity effective…
We consider models of chaotic inflation driven by the real parts of a conjugate pair of Higgs superfields involved in the spontaneous breaking of a grand unification symmetry at a scale assuming its supersymmetric value. We combine a…
In negatively curved field spaces, inflation can be realised even in steep potentials. Hyperinflation invokes the `centrifugal force' of a field orbiting the hyperbolic plane to sustain inflation. We generalise hyperinflation by showing…
With the growing consensus on simple power law inflation models not being favored by the PLANCK observations, dynamics for the non-standard inflation gain significant interest in the recent past. In this paper, we analyze in detail a class…
We review the realization of Starobinsky-type inflation within induced-gravity Supersymmetric (SUSY) and non-SUSY models. In both cases, inflation is in agreement with the current data and can be attained for subplanckian values of the…
We discuss the possibility to construct supergravity models with a single superfield describing inflation as well as the tiny cosmological constant $V \sim 10^{{-120}}$. One could expect that the simplest way to do it is to study models…
We investigate, in a model-independent way, the conditions required to obtain a satisfactory model of extended inflation in which inflation is brought to an end by a first-order phase transition. The constraints are that the correct present…