We analyze a distinctive mechanism for inflation in which particle production slows down a scalar field on a steep potential, and show how it descends from angular moduli in string compactifications. The analysis of density perturbations -taking into account the integrated effect of the produced particles and their quantum fluctuations -requires somewhat new techniques that we develop. We then determine the conditions for this effect to produce sixty e-foldings of inflation with the correct amplitude of density perturbations at the Gaussian level, and show that these requirements can be straightforwardly satisfied. Finally, we estimate the amplitude of the non-Gaussianity in the power spectrum and find a significant equilateral contribution.
We show how backreaction of the inflaton potential energy on heavy scalar fields can flatten the inflationary potential, as the heavy fields adjust to their most energetically favorable configuration. This mechanism operates in previous UV-complete examples of axion monodromy inflation - flattening a would-be quadratic potential to one linear in the inflaton field - but occurs more generally, and we illustrate the effect with several examples. Special choices of compactification minimizing backreaction may realize chaotic inflation with a quadratic potential, but we argue that a flatter potential such as power-law inflation $V(\phi) \propto \phi^p$ with $p<2$ is a more generic option at sufficiently large values of $\phi$.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures. v2: new references adde
We develop tools to engineer de Sitter vacua with semi-holographic duals, using elliptic fibrations and orientifolds to uplift Freund-Rubin compactifications with CFT duals. The dual brane construction is compact and constitutes a microscopic realization of the dS/dS correspondence, realizing d-dimensional de Sitter space as a warped compactification down to (d − 1)-dimensional de Sitter gravity coupled to a pair of large-N matter sectors. This provides a parametric microscopic interpretation of the Gibbons-Hawking entropy. We illustrate these ideas with an explicit class of examples in three dimensions, and describe ongoing work on four-dimensional constructions.
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