Chaotic inflation in Jordan frame supergravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates inflation within Jordan frame supergravity, identifies a tachyonic instability issue, and proposes a higher order correction to resolve it, with implications for Higgs inflation in NMSSM.

Contribution

It introduces a higher order correction to address tachyonic instability in Jordan frame supergravity models of inflation.

Findings

Tachyonic instability occurs along non-inflaton directions in generic models.

A natural higher order correction can fix the tachyonic mass problem.

The correction does not disrupt slow-roll inflation conditions.

Abstract

We consider the inflationary scenario with non-minimal coupling in 4D Jordan frame supergravity. We find that there occurs a tachyonic instability along the direction of the accompanying non-inflaton field in generic Jordan frame supergravity models. We propose a higher order correction to the Jordan frame function for solving the tachyonic mass problem and show that the necessary correction can be naturally generated by the heavy thresholds without spoiling the slow-roll conditions. We discuss the implication of the result on the Higgs inflation in NMSSM.