Related papers: Preserving Flat Directions During Inflation
We argue that in the simplest version of the KKLT model, the maximal value of the Hubble constant during inflation cannot exceed the present value of the gravitino mass, H< m_{3/2}. This may have important implications for string cosmology…
We consider a possibility that one of the flat directions in the minimal supersymmetric standard model plays the role of the inflaton field and realizes large-field inflation. This is achieved by introducing a generalized shift symmetry on…
We consider gravitationally induced corrections to inflaton potentials driven by supersymmetry breaking in a five-dimensional supergravity, compactified on a $ S_1/Z_2 $ orbifold. The supersymmetry breaking takes place on the hidden brane…
We discuss the constraints on the inhomogeneous reheating scenario. In particular, we discuss the prospects for low scale inflation with a Hubble constant of the order of the gravitino mass, and the possibility that an MSSM flat direction…
We demonstrate how to realize within supergravity a novel chaotic-type inflationary scenario driven by the radial parts of a conjugate pair of Higgs superfields causing the spontaneous breaking of a grand unified gauge symmetry at a scale…
We investigate the effects of hidden matter condensation on supersymmetry breaking in supergravity models derived from free fermionic strings. We find that the minimum of the effective potential in the modulus direction depends strongly on…
The potential during inflation must be very flat in, at least, the direction of the inflaton. In renormalizable global supersymmetry, flat directions are ubiquitous, but they are not preserved in a generic supergravity theory. It is known…
We have investigated a number of GUT models for the possibility that their Higgs fields might be responsible for inflation in the early universe. In addition to models having an intrinsic Planck mass parameter, we have entertained…
Constructing models of inflation and/or baryogenesis in the context of N=1 supergravity is known to be difficult as the finite energy density during inflation typically generates large (order the Hubble scale) mass terms. This is the…
Thermal inflation is an attractive idea to dilute cosmic density of unwanted particles such as moduli fields which cause cosmological difficulties. However, it also dilutes preexisting baryon asymmetry and some viable baryogenesis is…
Flat directions are a generic feature of supersymmetric theories. They are of cosmological interest because they can lead to coherent production of scalars. In the early universe such flat directions could be dangerous due to the…
We propose a model for combining the Standard Model (SM) with gravity. It relies on a non-minimal coupling of the Higgs field to the Ricci scalar and on the Palatini formulation of gravity. Without introducing any new degrees of freedom in…
It has been argued that rather generic features of string-inspired inflationary theories with low-energy supersymmetry (SUSY) make it difficult to achieve inflation with a Hubble scale H > m_{3/2}, where m_{3/2} is the gravitino mass in the…
Supersymmetry plays a fundamental role in the radiative stability of many inflationary models. Spontaneous breaking of the symmetry inevitably leads to fields with masses of order the Hubble scale during inflation. When these fields couple…
We present a model of inflation in a supergravity framework in the Einstein frame where the Higgs field of the next to minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM) plays the role of the inflaton. Previous attempts which assumed non-minimal…
Flat directions in supersymmetric models can get large vacuum expectation values in the early Universe which leads to a large mass for gauge bosons and gauginos. We point out that this can then result in enhanced gravitino production…
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…
We examine the constraints on F-term hybrid inflation by considering the flat directions in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We find that some coupling terms between the flat direction fields and the field which dominates…
Scalar field models of inflation based on a large nonminimal coupling to gravity xi, in particular, Higgs inflation, may violate unitarity at an energy scale ~ M_p / xi << M_p. In this case the model is incomplete at energy scales relevant…
We go a step further in the search for a consistent and realistic supergravity model of large-field inflation by building a class of models with the following features: during slow-roll, all the scalar fields other than the inflaton are…