On sgoldstino-less supergravity models of inflation

TL;DR

This paper develops supergravity models for large-field inflation that ensure all non-inflaton scalars are stabilized during inflation and supersymmetry breaking occurs with zero classical vacuum energy at the end.

Contribution

It introduces a class of supergravity inflation models using geometrical Kaehler potential properties and a nilpotent superfield to achieve stable inflation and vanishing vacuum energy.

Findings

All scalar fields are stabilized during inflation.

Supersymmetry is spontaneously broken with zero classical vacuum energy.

Models are consistent with large-field inflation requirements.

Abstract

We go a step further in the search for a consistent and realistic supergravity model of large-field inflation by building a class of models with the following features: during slow-roll, all the scalar fields other than the inflaton are frozen by large inflaton-dependent masses or removed from the spectrum; at the end of inflation, supersymmetry is spontaneously broken with naturally vanishing classical vacuum energy. We achieve this by combining some geometrical properties of the Kaehler potential with the consistent use of a single nilpotent chiral superfield, in one-to-one correspondence with the supersymmetry-breaking direction in field space at the vacuum.