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Register a new userModuli Backreaction on Inflationary Attractors
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We investigate the interplay between moduli dynamics and inflation, focusing on the KKLT-scenario and cosmological $alpha$-attractors. General couplings between these sectors can induce a significant backreaction and potentially destroy the inflationary regime; however, we demonstrate that this generically does not happen for $alpha$-attractors. Depending on the details of the superpotential, the volume modulus can either be stable during the entire inflationary trajectory, or become tachyonic at some point and act as a waterfall field, resulting in a sudden end of inflation. In the latter case there is a universal supersymmetric minimum where the scalars end up, preventing the decompactification scenario. The gravitino mass is independent from the inflationary scale with no fine-tuning of the parameters. The observational predictions conform to the universal value of attractors, fully compatible with the Planck data, with possibly a capped number of e-folds due to the interplay with moduli.
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In a series of recent papers Kallosh, Linde, and collaborators have provided a unified description of single-field inflation with several types of potentials, ranging from power law to supergravity, in terms of just one parameter $alpha$. These so-called $alpha$-attractors predict a spectral index $n_{s}$ and a tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$, which are fully compatible with the latest Planck data. The only common feature of all $alpha$-attractors is a non-canonical kinetic term with a pole, and a potential analytic around the pole. In this paper, starting from the same Einstein frame with a non-canonical scalar kinetic energy, we explore the case of non-analytic potentials. We find the functional form that corresponds to quasi-scale invariant gravitational models in the Jordan frame, characterised by a universal relation between $r$ and $n_{s}$ that fits the observational data but is clearly distinct from the one of the $alpha$-attractors. It is known that the breaking of the exact classical scale-invariance in the Jordan frame can be attributed to one-loop corrections. Therefore we conclude that there exists a class of non-analytic potentials in the non-canonical Einstein frame that are physically equivalent to a class of models in the Jordan frame, with scale-invariance softly broken by one-loop quantum corrections.
In this PhD thesis, we investigate generic features of inflation which are strictly related to fundamental aspects of UV-physics scenarios, such as string theory or supergravity. After a short introduction to standard and inflationary cosmology, we present our research findings. On the one hand, we show that focusing on universality properties of inflation can yield surprisingly stringent bounds on its dynamics. This approach allows us to identify the regime where the inflationary field range is uniquely determined by both the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the spectral index. Then, we derive a novel field-range bound, which is two orders of magnitude stronger than the original one derived by Lyth. On the other hand, we discuss the embedding of inflation in supergravity and prove that non-trivial hyperbolic Kahler geometries induce an attractor for the inflationary observables: the spectral tilt tends automatically to the center of the Planck dome whereas the amount of primordial gravitational waves is directly controlled by curvature of the internal manifold. We identify the origin of this attractor mechanism in the so-called $alpha$-scale supergravity model. Finally, we show how the inclusion of a nilpotent sector, allowing for a unified description of inflation and dark energy, implies an enhancement of the attractor nature of the theory. The main results of this thesis have been already published elsewhere. However, here we pay special attention to present them in a comprehensive way and provide the reader with the necessary background.
I show that the problem of realizing inflation in theories with random potentials of a limited number of fields can be solved, and agreement with the observational data can be naturally achieved if at least one of these fields has a non-minimal kinetic term of the type used in the theory of cosmological $alpha$-attractors.
The Planck value of the spectral index can be interpreted as $n_s = 1 - 2/N$ in terms of the number of e-foldings $N$. An appealing explanation for this phenomenological observation is provided by $alpha$-attractors: the inflationary predictions of these supergravity models are fully determined by the curvature of the Kahler manifold. We provide a novel formulation of $alpha$-attractors which only involves a single chiral superfield. Our construction involves a natural deformation of no-scale models, and employs these to construct a De Sitter plateau with an exponential fall-off. Finally, we show how analogous structures with a flat Kahler geometry arise as a singular limit of such $alpha$-scale models.
We study the implications of the recently proposed Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture (TCC) for early universe cosmology and in particular inflationary cosmology. The TCC leads to the conclusion that if we want inflationary cosmology to provide a successful scenario for cosmological structure formation, the energy scale of inflation has to be lower than $10^9$ GeV. Demanding the correct amplitude of the cosmological perturbations then forces the generalized slow-roll parameter $epsilon$ of the model to be very small ($<10^{-31}$). This leads to the prediction of a negligible amplitude of primordial gravitational waves. For slow-roll inflation models, it also leads to severe fine tuning of initial conditions.
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