Constructing Flat Inflationary Potentials in Supersymmetry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that supersymmetry can naturally produce flat inflationary potentials at sub-Planckian scales, enabling inflection point inflation with reduced fine-tuning within the weak scale supersymmetry framework.

Contribution

It introduces a method to construct flat inflationary potentials in supersymmetry by utilizing the structure of the scalar potential and higher order terms, allowing for inflection point inflation at accessible energy scales.

Findings

Inflationary potentials can be sufficiently flat at sub-Planckian field values in supersymmetry.

Inflection point inflation is achievable within a broad energy range, from TeV to 3 x 10^9 GeV.

Fine tuning of parameters for inflation is significantly improved.

Abstract

We show that in supersymmetry one can obtain inflationary potentials in the observable sector that are sufficiently flat at sub-Planckian field values. Structure of the supersymmetric scalar potential along a flat direction combined with the existence of higher order terms in an effective field theory expansion allows one to find scales below the effective field theory cut off where two or a higher number of the potential derivatives may vanish. As an explicit example, we demonstrate that inflection point inflation within a broad range of scales O(TeV) << H < 3 x 10^9 GeV can be accommodated within weak scale supersymmetry. The fine tuning of model parameters needed for successful inflation is considerably improved in this scenario.