Complex Field Inflation

TL;DR

This paper introduces complex field inflation models, demonstrating their robustness and compatibility with current data, and explores their potential to be tested by future CMB experiments.

Contribution

It is the first study of complex field inflation, showing how it can improve model predictions and be realized in various large-field scenarios.

Findings

Both models are compatible with Planck data.

Parameter space can be tested by future CMB-S4 experiments.

Complex field inflation offers more robust predictions.

Abstract

We report first study of complex field inflation. Although understood as a specific two-field inflation, a complex field inflation is able to make more robust model predictions on primordial curvature perturbation. Explicitly we discuss the model realizations of complex chaotic and exponential inflation in various large-field contexts. Both complex field models contain a single complex scalar together with only two free parameters. Using numerical handles aimed to calculate primordial curvature perturbation from multifield inflation, we show that both models are compatible with current Planck data, and the individual surviving parameter space can be substantially or fully probed by future CMB-S4 experiments.