Naturalness and chaotic inflation in supergravity from massive vector multiplets

Abstract

We study the embedding of the quadratic model of chaotic inflation into the 4D, N=1 minimal theories of supergravity by the use of massive vector multiplets and investigate its robustness against higher order corrections. In particular, we investigate the criterion of technical naturalness for the inflaton potential. In the framework of the new-minimal formulation the massive vector multiplet is built in terms of a real linear multiplet coupled to a vector multiplet via the 4D analog of the Green-Schwarz term. This theory gives rise to a single-field quadratic model of chaotic inflation, which is protected by an shift symmetry which naturally suppresses the higher order corrections. The embedding in the old-minimal formulation is again achieved in terms of a massive vector multiplet and also gives rise to single-field inflation. Nevertheless in this case there is no obvious symmetry to protect the model from higher order corrections. © 2014 The Author(s).