P-nflation: generating cosmic Inflation with p-forms

TL;DR

This paper explores how p-form fields, including scalars, vectors, and higher forms, can drive cosmic inflation through non-minimal coupling to gravity, offering new theoretical models for the early universe.

Contribution

It introduces a unified framework for inflation driven by p-form fields and reveals dualities between different form fields in inflationary scenarios.

Findings

Scalar, vector, 2-form, and 3-form fields can all produce inflation.

Duality relations connect higher p-forms to scalar and vector inflation models.

Non-minimal coupling is key to realizing inflation with p-forms.

Abstract

We show that an inflationary background might be realized by using any p-form non-minimally coupled to gravity. Standard scalar field inflation corresponds to the 0-form case and vector inflation to the 1-form. Moreover, we show that the 2- and 3-form fields are dual to a new vector and scalar inflationary theories where the kinetic terms are non-minimally coupled to gravity.