Inflation with a quartic potential in the framework of Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores inflation driven by a quartic potential within Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, showing that specific coupling functions can produce predictions consistent with observational data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel coupling function in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity with a quartic inflaton potential, aligning theoretical predictions with observations.

Findings

Model with quartic potential and new coupling function matches observational bounds

Inflationary parameters are consistent with Planck data

Demonstrates viability of Higgs-like inflation in modified gravity context

Abstract

We investigate inflationary dynamics in the framework of the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. In the model under consideration, the inflaton field is non-minimally coupled to the Gauss-Bonnet curvature invariant, so that the latter appears to be dynamically important. We consider a quartic potential for the inflaton field, in particular the one asymptotically connected to the Higgs inflation, and a wider class of coupling functions not considered in the earlier work. Keeping in mind the observational bounds on the parameters - the amplitude of scalar perturbations $A_s$, spectral index $n_s$ and tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$, we demonstrate that the model a quartic potential and the proposed coupling function is in agreement with observation.