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A new parameter in attractor single-field inflation

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 نشر من قبل Jinn-Ouk Gong
 تاريخ النشر 2015
  مجال البحث فيزياء
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We revisit the notion of slow-roll in the context of general single-field inflation. As a generalization of slow-roll dynamics, we consider an inflaton $phi$ in an attractor phase where the time derivative of $phi$ is determined by a function of $phi$, $dotphi=dotphi(phi)$. In other words, we consider the case when the number of $e$-folds $N$ counted backward in time from the end of inflation is solely a function of $phi$, $N=N(phi)$. In this case, it is found that we need a new independent parameter to properly describe the dynamics of the inflaton field in general, in addition to the standard parameters conventionally denoted by $epsilon$, $eta$, $c_s^2$ and $s$. Two illustrative examples are presented to discuss the non-slow-roll dynamics of the inflaton field consistent with observations.

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