Category: List of Bases 2012 Throughout the year RESEARCH IN PARTICLE AND ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS

Title:

M-flation, its naturalness and 1/N resolution to quantum eta-problem

Start Time:

16:30

Location:

ICTP (Leonardo da Vinci Building Luigi Stasi Seminar Room)

Speaker(s):

Shahin SHEIKH-JABBARI (IPM, Tehran, Iran)

Description:

Abstract. In this talk, I introduce a specific model of inflation with three matrix-valued NxN scalar inflaton fields, minimally coupled to Einstein gravity, the M-flation. We argue about the possible string theory origins of M-flation. After discussing effective single field inflationary trajectories of the model, we study the spectrum and role of other "spectator" fields in the model. In particular, we focus on the "quantum eta-problem", that in any scalar-driven inflationary model, due to quantum gravity effects, there is an R\phi^2 term in the effective action of the inflationary model, causing the slow-roll parameter \eta to be of order one. We argue that for the M-flation case there are 1/N suppression factors to the one-loop corrections to \eta, resolving the quantum eta-problem in this model.