Inflation in simple one-loop effective potentials of perturbative quantum gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates inflation driven by one-loop effective potentials in scalar-tensor quantum gravity, analyzing three models and their compatibility with observational data, highlighting the potential and limitations of each model.

Contribution

It introduces and compares three models of effective potentials in perturbative quantum gravity for inflation, assessing their observational viability.

Findings

First model aligns with data for ~70 e-foldings

Second model aligns with data for ~40 e-foldings

Generalized Coleman-Weinberg model does not fit observational data

Abstract

We study inflation in scalar-tensor perturbative quantum gravity driven by a one-loop effective potential. We consider effective potentials generated by three models. The first model describes a single scalar field with a non-vanishing mass. The second model describes a massless scalar field with non-minimal coupling to the Einstein tensor. The third model generalises the Coleman-Weinberg model for the gravitational case. The first model can be consistent with the observational data for $N\sim 70$ e-foldings. The second model can be consistent with the observational data for $N \sim 40$ e-foldings. We did not find parameters that make the generalised Coleman-Weinberg model consistent with the observational data. We discuss the implications of these results and ways to improve them with other terms of effective action.