Universality class in conformal inflation
- Department of Physics and SITP, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States)
We develop a new class of chaotic inflation models with spontaneously broken conformal invariance. Observational consequences of a broad class of such models are stable with respect to strong deformations of the scalar potential. This universality is a critical phenomenon near the point of enhanced symmetry, SO(1,1), in case of conformal inflation. It appears because of the exponential stretching of the moduli space and the resulting exponential flattening of scalar potentials upon switching from the Jordan frame to the Einstein frame in this class of models. This result resembles stretching and flattening of inhomogeneities during inflationary expansion. It has a simple interpretation in terms of velocity versus rapidity near the Kähler cone in the moduli space, similar to the light cone of special theory of relativity. This effect makes inflation possible even in the models with very steep potentials. We describe conformal and superconformal versions of this cosmological attractor mechanism.
- OSTI ID:
- 22282781
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2013, Issue 07; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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