Geometric structure of multi-form-field isotropic inflation and primordial fluctuations

TL;DR

This paper explores how the geometry of multi-form-field space influences inflation, revealing a destabilization mechanism, classifying models, and predicting distinctive primordial fluctuation features that can be tested observationally.

Contribution

It introduces the geometric destabilization mechanism in multi-form-field inflation and analyzes the resulting phases and primordial fluctuation characteristics.

Findings

Destabilization leads to a new inflationary phase, such as anisotropic inflation.

Scalar-to-tensor ratio is suppressed with large one-form fields.

Primordial fluctuations show features similar to hyperbolic inflation.

Abstract

An inflationary scenario is expected to be embedded into an ultraviolet (UV) complete theory such as string theory. The effect of UV complete theories may appear as nontrivial kinetic terms in the low energy effective field theory, which provides a nontrivial geometry in field space. In this paper, we study the effect of the geometry of multi-form-field space on an inflationary scenario. In particular, we focus on the geometric destabilization mechanism which induces the phase transition from the conventional slow-roll inflation to a novel inflationary scenario. Anisotropic inflation is a typical example of the new phase. To conform to observations, we restrict us to isotropic configuration of form fields. We clarify the conditions for the onset of the destabilization and reveal the geometric structure of attractors after the destabilization. We classify the viable models from the observational point of view. We also investigate the features of the primordial fluctuations and find the similarity to hyperbolic inflation. By calculating the power spectrum, we make several phenomenological predictions which are useful to discriminate our models from others inflation models. We found the scalar-to-tensor $r$ will be suppressed by large one-form gauge fields, while it has the same order as the slow roll parameter $r\sim\mathcal{O}(1)\epsilon$ for large two-from gauge fields.