A Meandering Inflaton

TL;DR

This paper explores how a meandering inflaton in a complex string theory landscape can naturally produce sufficient inflation and generate observable fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background.

Contribution

It demonstrates that a meandering inflaton trajectory in a multi-dimensional potential naturally results in prolonged inflation and distinctive primordial fluctuations.

Findings

Meandering inflaton leads to many e-folds of inflation.

Fluctuations in the primordial power spectrum are predicted.

Potential detectability of these fluctuations by future experiments like PLANCK.

Abstract

If the cosmological inflationary scenario took place in the cosmic landscape in string theory, the inflaton, the scalar mode responsible for inflation, would have meandered in a complicated multi-dimensional potential. We show that this meandering property naturally leads to many e-folds of inflation, a necessary condition for a successful inflationary scenario. This behavior also leads to fluctuations in the primordial power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which may be detected in a near future cosmic variance limited experiment like PLANCK.