Inflation and The Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how inflation can be embedded within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, identifying specific inflaton candidates compatible with cosmological data and testable at the LHC.

Contribution

It provides a concrete realization of inflation within MSSM using specific supersymmetric partners as inflatons, linking cosmology with particle physics.

Findings

Inflation occurs at a low scale within MSSM.

Perturbations match WMAP data.

Inflaton candidates are discoverable at LHC.

Abstract

There is strong evidence from cosmological data that the universe underwent an epoch of superluminal expansion called inflation. A satisfactory embedding of inflation in fundamental physics has been an outstanding problem at the interface of cosmology and high energy physics. We show how inflation can be realized within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). The inflaton candidates are two specific combinations of supersymmetric partners of quarks and leptons. MSSM inflation occurs at a low scale and generates perturbations in the range experimentally allowed by the latest data from Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The parameter space for inflation is compatible with supersymmetric dark matter, and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is capable of discovering the inflaton candidates in the allowed regions of parameter space.