1201.5926 (Shinji Tsujikawa)

Observational tests of inflation with a field derivative coupling to
gravity    [PDF]

Shinji Tsujikawa

A field kinetic coupling with the Einstein tensor leads to a gravitationally
enhanced friction during inflation, by which even steep potentials with
theoretically natural model parameters can drive cosmic acceleration. In the
presence of this non-minimal derivative coupling we place observational
constraints on a number of representative inflationary models such as chaotic
inflation, inflation with exponential potentials, natural inflation, and hybrid
inflation. We show that most of the models can be made compatible with the
current observational data mainly due to the suppressed tensor-to-scalar ratio.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5926