Inflation Driven by Unification Energy

TL;DR

This paper explores a hybrid inflation model where vacuum energy from grand unified theory condensates drives inflation, allowing for significant tensor-to-scalar ratios consistent with observed spectral indices.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking GUT-scale vacuum energy to inflation, demonstrating compatibility with observational data and providing a novel approach to inflationary theory.

Findings

Significant tensor-to-scalar ratios are achievable.

The model fits the observed spectral index.

Vacuum energy from GUT condensates can drive inflation.

Abstract

We examine the hypothesis that inflation is primarily driven by vacuum energy at a scale indicated by gauge coupling unification. Concretely, we consider a class of hybrid inflation models wherein the vacuum energy associated with a grand unified theory condensate provides the dominant energy during inflation, while a second "inflaton" scalar slow-rolls. We show that it is possible to obtain significant tensor-to-scalar ratios while fitting the observed spectral index.