A Delicate Universe: Compactification Obstacles to D-brane Inflation

Journal Article · Fri Oct 05 04:00:00 EDT 2007 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.99.141601· OSTI ID:21024227

Baumann, Daniel; Dymarsky, Anatoly; McAllister, Liam ^[1]; Klebanov, Igor R; Steinhardt, Paul J ^[1]

---

1. Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544 (United States)

We investigate whether explicit models of warped D-brane inflation are possible in string compactifications. To this end, we study the potential for D3-brane motion in a warped conifold that includes holomorphically embedded D7-branes involved in moduli stabilization. The presence of the D7-branes significantly modifies the inflaton potential. We construct an example based on a very simple and symmetric embedding due to Kuperstein, z{sub 1}=const, in which it is possible to fine-tune the potential so that slow-roll inflation can occur. The resulting model is rather delicate: inflation occurs in the vicinity of an inflection point, and the cosmological predictions are extremely sensitive to the precise shape of the potential.

• OSTI ID: 21024227
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 14 Vol. 99; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COMPACTIFICATION
D-BRANES
INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE
POTENTIALS
STRING THEORY
UNIVERSE