2015/11/11 by Emilian Dudas, Dudas, Emilian, Clemens Wieck +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1511.03413
12 pages, 4 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the 18th International Conference `From the Planck Scale to the Electroweak Scale', 25-29 May 2015, Ioannina, Greece
arxiv created 2015/11/11 · arxiv updated 2015/11/12
We review the effects of heavy scalar fields during inflation in the framework of \mathcal N = 1 supergravity. Such heavy scalars can be geometric moduli from string compactifications or stabilizer fields from a different sector of the theory. Even when these fields are heavier than the Hubble scale during inflation, they generically cause backreactions which alter the dynamics of the system. Severe problems may arise when the heavy fields break supersymmetry, which is quite generic for Kähler moduli. We illustrate these effects in two examples, chaotic inflation and Starobinsky-like inflation. In chaotic inflation the backreaction of heavy Kähler moduli causes a flattening of the quadratic potential. In many setups of Starobinsky-like inflation, however, backreactions spoil the flatness of the plateau.