On Inflation in the Presence of a Gaugino Condensate

TL;DR

This paper investigates how high-scale inflation impacts gaugino condensation in supergravity, revealing that rapid expansion can destabilize the condensate and affect early Universe models.

Contribution

It demonstrates that inflationary Hubble scales comparable to the gaugino condensation scale prevent condensate stabilization, imposing model-independent constraints on inflation.

Findings

Gaugino condensate becomes dynamical during inflation.

High Hubble rates can lead to condensate disappearance.

Destabilization occurs at Hubble scales about an order below the condensation scale.

Abstract

We study the effect of inflation on gaugino condensation in supergravity. Unless the Hubble scale H is significantly below the gaugino condensation scale, the gaugino condensate is a dynamical variable which cannot be integrated out. For a sufficiently high H, the gaugino condensate evolves to zero which in turn leads to dilaton/moduli destabilization. In practice, this often occurs at the Hubble rate about an order of magnitude below the gaugino condensation scale. This effect is independent of the specifics of moduli stabilization and thus places model independent constraints on inflationary scenarios. It also applies more generally to any periods of fast expansion in the early Universe.