Ultraviolet-Protected Inflation

Journal Article · Fri Apr 22 04:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.106.161302· OSTI ID:21550314

Germani, Cristiano ^[1]; Kehagias, Alex ^[2]

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1. Arnold Sommerfeld Center, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Theresienstrasse 37, 80333 Muenchen (Germany)
2. Physics Division, National Technical University of Athens, 15780 Zografou Campus, Athens (Greece)

In natural inflation, the inflaton is a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson which acquires a mass by explicit breaking of a global shift symmetry at scale f. In this case, for small field values, the potential is flat and stable under radiative corrections. Nevertheless, slow roll conditions enforce f>>M{sub p}, making the validity of the whole scenario questionable. In this Letter, we show that a coupling of the inflaton kinetic term to the Einstein tensor allows f<<M{sub p} by enhancing the gravitational friction acting on the inflaton during inflation. This new unique interaction (a) keeps the theory perturbative in the whole inflationary trajectory, (b) preserves the tree-level shift invariance of the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson, and (c) avoids the introduction of any new degrees of freedom with respect to standard natural inflation.

• OSTI ID: 21550314
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 16 Vol. 106; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
BOSONS
CORRECTIONS
COUPLING
DEGREES OF FREEDOM
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FRICTION
GOLDSTONE BOSONS
INTERACTIONS
MASS
POSTULATED PARTICLES
POTENTIALS
RADIATIONS
RADIATIVE CORRECTIONS
SYMMETRY
TENSORS
TRAJECTORIES
ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION