We consider a brane cosmology scenario by taking an inflating 3D domain wall immersed in a five-dimensional Minkowski space in the presence of a stack of $N$ parallel domain walls. They are static BPS solutions of the bosonic sector of a 5D supergravity theory. However, one can move towards each other due to an attractive force in between driven by bulk particle collisions and {it resonant tunneling effect}. The accelerating domain wall is a 3-brane that is assumed to be our inflating early Universe. We analyze this inflationary phase governed by the inflaton potential induced on the brane. We compute the slow-roll parameters and show that the spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar ratio are within the recent observational data.
We illustrate a framework for constructing models of chaotic inflation where the inflaton is the position of a D3 brane along the universal cover of a string compactification. In our scenario, a brane rolls many times around a non-trivial one-cycle, thereby unwinding a Ramond-Ramond flux. These flux monodromies are similar in spirit to the monodromies of Silverstein, Westphal, and McAllister, and their four-dimensional description is that of Kaloper and Sorbo. Assuming moduli stabilization is rigid enough, the large-field inflationary potential is protected from radiative corrections by a discrete shift symmetry.
We investigate the primordial phase of the Universe in the context of brane inflation modeled by Bogomolnyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) domain walls solutions of a bosonic sector of a 5D supergravity inspired theory. The solutions are embedded into five dimensions and it is assumed that they interact with each other due to elastic particle collisions in the bulk. A four-dimensional arctan-type inflaton potential drives the accelerated expansion phase and predicts observational quantities in good agreement with the currently available Cosmic Microwave Background data.
Hilltop inflation models are often described by potentials $V = V_{0}(1-{phi^{n}over m^{n}}+...)$. The omitted terms indicated by ellipsis do not affect inflation for $m lesssim 1$, but the most popular models with $n =2$ and $4$ for $m lesssim 1$ are ruled out observationally. Meanwhile in the large $m$ limit the results of the calculations of the tensor to scalar ratio $r$ in the models with $V = V_{0}(1-{phi^{n}over m^{n}})$, for all $n$, converge to $r= 4/N lesssim 0.07$, as in chaotic inflation with $V sim phi$, suggesting a reasonably good fit to the Planck data. We show, however, that this is an artifact related to the inconsistency of the model $V = V_{0}(1-{phi^{n}over m^{n}})$ at $phi > m$. Consistent generalizations of this model in the large $m$ limit typically lead to a much greater value $r= 8/N$, which negatively affects the observational status of hilltop inflation. Similar results are valid for D-brane inflation with $V = V_{0}(1-{m^{n}over phi^{n}})$, but consistent generalizations of D-brane inflation models may successfully complement $alpha$-attractors in describing most of the area in the ($n_{s}$, $r$) space favored by Planck 2018.
We analyze the quantum-corrected moduli space of D7-brane position moduli with special emphasis on inflationary model building. D7-brane deformation moduli are key players in two recently proposed inflationary scenarios: The first, D7-brane chaotic inflation, is a variant of axion monodromy inflation which allows for an effective 4d supergravity description. The second, fluxbrane inflation, is a stringy version of D-term hybrid inflation. Both proposals rely on the fact that D7-brane coordinates enjoy a shift-symmetric Kahler potential at large complex structure of the Calabi-Yau threefold, making them naturally lighter than other fields. This shift symmetry is inherited from the mirror-dual Type IIA Wilson line on a D6-brane at large volume. The inflaton mass can be provided by a tree-level term in the flux superpotential. It induces a monodromy and, if tuned to a sufficiently small value, can give rise to a large-field model of inflation. Alternatively, by a sensible flux choice one can completely avoid a tree-level mass term, in which case the inflaton potential is induced via loop corrections. The positive vacuum energy can then be provided by a D-term, leading to a small-field model of hybrid natural inflation. In the present paper, we continue to develop a detailed understanding of the D7-brane moduli space focusing among others on shift-symmetry-preserving flux choices, flux-induced superpotential in Type IIB/F-theory language, and loop corrections. While the inflationary applications represent our main physics motivation, we expect that some of our findings will be useful for other phenomenological issues involving 7-branes in Type IIB/F-theory constructions.
We discuss supergravity inflation in braneworld cosmology for the class of potentials $V(phi)=alpha phi^nrm{exp}(-beta^m phi^m)$ with $m=1,~2$. These minimal SUGRA models evade the $eta$ problem due to a broken shift symmetry and can easily accommodate the observational constraints. Models with smaller $n$ are preferred while models with larger $n$ are out of the $2sigma$ region. Remarkably, the field excursions required for $60$ $e$-foldings stay sub-planckian $Deltaphi <1$.