Scaling attractors in multi-field inflation

Perseas Christodoulidis*, Diederik Roest, Evangelos I. Sfakianakis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

33 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Multi-field inflation with a curved scalar geometry has been found to support background trajectories that violate the slow-roll, slow-turn conditions and thus have the potential to evade the swampland constraints. In order to understand how generic this novel behaviour is and what conditions lead to it, we perform a classification of dynamical attractors of two-field inflation that are of the scaling type. Scaling solutions form a one-parameter generalization of De Sitter solutions with a constant value of the first Hubble flow parameter epsilon and, as we argue and demonstrate, form a natural starting point for the study of non-slow-roll slow-turn behaviour.

All scaling solutions can be classified as critical points of a specific dynamical system. We recover known multi-field inflationary attractors as approximate scaling solutions and classify their stability using dynamical system techniques. In particular, we discover that dynamical bifurcations play an integral role in the transition between geodesic and non-geodesic motion and discuss the ability of scaling solutions to describe realistic multi-field models. We revisit the criteria for background stability and show cases where the usual criteria found in the literature do evolution of the system.

Original languageEnglish
Article number059
Number of pages39
JournalJournal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Volume2019
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec-2019

Keywords

  • ation
  • physics of the early universe
  • gravity
  • EVOLUTION

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