Monodromy Inflation in the Strong Coupling Regime of the Effective Field Theory

Journal Article · Thu Aug 30 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.091301· OSTI ID:1467761

D’Amico, Guido; Kaloper, Nemanja; Lawrence, Albion

We present a simple effective field theory formulation of a general family of single-field flux monodromy models for which strong coupling effects at large field values can flatten the potential and activate higher-derivative operators. Both of these effects can suppress the tensor amplitude. These models are radiatively and nonperturbatively stable and can sustain ≳ 60 e folds of inflation. The dynamics combines features of both large-field chaotic inflation and k inflation. Reducing the tensor-scalar ratio below the observational bound r ≲ 0.1 while keeping the scalar spectral index n_s within experimental bounds either yields equilateral non-Gaussianity f ^{$\underset{\mathrm{NL}}{\overset{}{eq}}$} ≃ O(1) , close to the current observational bounds, or gives very small r .

• Research Organization: Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA (United States); Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0009999; SC0009987
• OSTI ID: 1467761
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1502070
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Vol. 121 Journal Issue: 9; ISSN 0031-9007
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS