Slow-roll Hilltop Inflation in $f(\phi,T)$ gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores slow-roll hilltop inflation within the $f(, T)$ gravity framework, showing its viability against recent Planck data and addressing limitations of standard cosmological models.

Contribution

It introduces a study of hilltop inflation in $f(, T)$ gravity, highlighting its compatibility with observational data and expanding the understanding of modified gravity theories.

Findings

Hilltop inflation models are viable in $f(, T)$ gravity.

The models align with latest Planck observational constraints.

Modified gravity can successfully describe early universe inflation.

Abstract

Over the last four decades, a number of modified gravity theories have been proposed to study cosmological phenomena as they can provide solutions for some of the shortcomings of Einstein's gravity in explaining early and late time accelerations of the observed Universe, the existence of dark matter, singularities at center of Black holes etc. The theoretical and observational challenges faced by the $\Lambda$CDM model also point towards the necessity for looking beyond General Relativity. In this direction, recently $f(\phi, T)$ gravity has been proposed in literature where the non-minimal coupling of the scalar field $\phi$ with the trace of energy-momentum tensor $T$ has been introduced in the Einstein-Hilbert action. Considering the Hilltop potential, we have studied the slow-roll inflation in the framework of $f(\phi, T)$ gravity. It is found that Hilltop inflationary models in $f(\phi, T)$ gravity are viable when seen in the light of latest Planck data.