Impacts of supersymmetric higher derivative terms on inflation models in supergravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates how supersymmetric higher derivative terms influence inflation models in supergravity, revealing they can modify kinetic terms and resolve the eta-problem, leading to power-law potentials with exponents less than two.

Contribution

It demonstrates that supersymmetric higher derivative terms can alter inflation dynamics and solve the eta-problem in supergravity models, a novel insight in the field.

Findings

Higher derivative terms modify the inflaton's kinetic coefficient.

The eta-problem can be avoided with small cutoff scales.

Inflaton potentials become power-law with exponents less than two.

Abstract

We show the effects of supersymmetric higher derivative terms on inflation models in supergravity. The results show that such terms generically modify the effective kinetic coefficient of the inflaton during inflation if the cut off scale of the higher derivative operators is sufficiently small. In such a case, the $\eta$-problem in supergravity does not occur, and we find that the effective potential of the inflaton generically becomes a power type potential with a power smaller than two.