Nonminimal coupling and inflationary attractors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how various inflationary models can be derived from a general scalar-tensor theory with arbitrary conformal factors, highlighting the role of attractors in predicting observable parameters and the challenge they pose for model differentiation.

Contribution

It provides a unified framework showing how T model, E model, and Hilltop inflation arise from scalar-tensor theories, emphasizing the universality of attractors in inflationary predictions.

Findings

Attractors can produce any observable $n_s$ and $r$ values.

Different inflation models can be derived from a common scalar-tensor framework.

Attractor behavior complicates distinguishing between inflationary models.

Abstract

We show explicitly how the T model, E model, and Hilltop inflations are obtained from the general scalar-tensor theory of gravity with arbitrary conformal factors in the strong coupling limit. We argue that $\xi$ attractors can give any observables $n_s$ and $r$ by this method. The existence of attractors imposes a challenge to distinguish different models.