Related papers: Rapid-turn inflation in supergravity is rare and t…
There are well-known criteria on the potential and field-space geometry for determining if slow-roll, slow-turn, multi-field inflation is possible. However, even though it has been a topic of much recent interest, slow-roll, rapid-turn…
In this work we study slow-roll inflation for a vector-tensor model with massive vector fields non-minimally coupled to gravity. The model under consideration has arbitrary parameters for each geometrical coupling. Taking into account a…
In standard multi-field models, tachyonic isocurvature perturbations generally indicate the presence of an instability. We revisit the stability of some known counterexamples and show that, in a certain class of models that we call ultra…
It is well known that large Hubble-induced supergravity corrections to the inflaton field can ruin the flatness of the potential, thus creating a tension between slow-roll inflation and supergravity. In this paper we show that it is…
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…
It is commonly believed that a successful period of inflation driven by a single or several scalar fields requires a specific hierarchy of masses given by $M_{inf}\ll H \ll M_{heavy}$, where $M_{inf}$ can correspond to several or a single…
We prove the existence of a general class of rapidly turning two-field inflationary attractors. By only requiring a large, slowly varying turn rate, we solve the system completely without specifying any metric or potential, and prove the…
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 point out the existing confusions about the slowroll parameters and conditions for multifield inflation. If one requires the fields to roll down the gradient flow, we find that only articles adopting the Hubble slowroll expansion are on…
Large turns in multifield inflation can lead to a very rich phenomenology, but are difficult to realise in supergravity, and typically require large field space curvatures. In this work, we present a mechanism to realise multiple sharp…
We argue that the mass of the inflaton can be much smaller than the Hubble constant in supergravity models in which inflation is driven by D--terms and not F--terms. We investigate a supergravity toy model which leads to hybrid inflation…
Fibre inflation is a specific string theory construction based on the Large Volume Scenario that produces an inflationary plateau. We outline its relation to $\alpha$-attractor models for inflation, with the cosmological sector originating…
The tensor fraction $r\simeq 0.16$ found by BICEP2 corresponds to a Hubble parameter $H\simeq 1.0\times 10^{14}\GeV$ during inflation. This has two implications for the (single-field) slow-roll inflation hypothesis. First, the inflaton…
Inflation can be supported in very steep potentials if it is generated by rapidly turning fields, which can be natural in negatively curved field spaces. The curvature perturbation, $\zeta$, of these models undergoes an exponential,…
We develop a numerical statistical method to study linear cosmological fluctuations in inflationary scenarios with multiple fields, and apply it to an ensemble of six-field inflection point models in string theory. The latter are concrete…
An important unsolved problem that affects practically all attempts to connect string theory to cosmology and phenomenology is how to distinguish effective field theories belonging to the string landscape from those that are not consistent…
We show that theories of inflation with multiple, rapidly turning fields can generate large amounts of non-Gaussianity. We consider a general theory with two fields, an arbitrary field-space metric, and a potential that supports sustained,…
We propose a new version of the hybrid inflation scenario that produces a significantly tilted n>1 spectrum of curvature perturbations. This may happen in supersymmetric models where the inflaton field acquires a mass proportional to the…
We study models of modular inflation of the form expected to arise from low energy effective actions of superstring theories. We argue on general grounds that the most likely models of modular slow-roll inflation are small field models in…
We perform a general algebraic analysis on the possibility of realising slow-roll inflation in the moduli sector of string models. This problem turns out to be very closely related to the characterisation of models admitting metastable…