Inflaton decay in supergravity

Abstract

We discuss inflaton decay in supergravity, taking account of the gravitational effects. It is shown that, if the inflaton has a nonzero vacuum expectation value, it generically couples to any matter fields that appear in the superpotential at the tree level, and to any gauge sectors through anomalies in the supergravity. Through these processes, the inflaton generically decays into the supersymmetry breaking sector, producing many gravitinos. The inflaton also directly decays into a pair of the gravitinos. We derive constraints on both inflation models and supersymmetry breaking scenarios for avoiding overproduction of the gravitinos. Furthermore, the inflaton naturally decays into the visible sector via the top Yukawa coupling and SU(3)C gauge interactions. © 2007 The American Physical Society.