Features and implications of the plateau inflationary potentials

TL;DR

This paper reviews plateau inflationary potentials, especially the Starobinsky model, highlighting their implications for initial conditions and their compatibility with recent CMB data.

Contribution

It provides an overview of plateau inflation models and discusses their impact on the initial conditions problem in inflationary theory.

Findings

Plateau potentials are favored by recent CMB data.

Starobinsky model is a key example of such potentials.

Implications for initial conditions are significant and warrant further study.

Abstract

After the last PLANCK CMB data the plateau inflationary potentials are favored. I give some examples of such inflationary models emphasizing particularly on the Starobinsky model and its supergravity embedding. I discuss the crucial implications, regarding the initial conditions problem, of this new sort of potentials for the standard picture of the inflationary theory.