Apr 2007 - Sept 2008

Wilson Line Inflation

by Tasos Avgoustidis

Europe/London
OC 218

OC 218

Description
I will present a model of inflation in string theory, where the inflaton field corresponds to a Wilson line in the worldvolume of a D-brane, and in the presence of magnetic flux. Inflation ends in a hybrid fashion, when the Wilson line achieves a critical value and an open string mode becomes tachyonic. This scenario predicts a nearly flat, or red tilted, spectrum of scalar perturbations, with negligible primordial gravitational waves. Interestingly, there is a simple compactification in which the eta-problem, appearing in models of brane inflation, is absent.