APEC Seminar (Astronomy - Particle Physics - Experimental Physics - Cosmology)

Speaker: Gary Shiu (UW Madison/HKUST)
Title: Large Field Inflation in String Theory
Date (JST): Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 13:30 - 14:30
Place: Seminar Room A
Abstract: An observable that plays a decisive role in discriminating classes of inflationary models is primordial gravitational wave, imprinted in B-mode polarization of the CMB. Although a detectable level of primordial B-mode is not a must for inflation, such a signal if observed would naturally point us to ``large field" inflationary models. Models in which the inflaton transverses super-Planckian distance in field space are sensitive to the ultraviolet completion of gravity. Thus, a proper formulation of large eld models calls for inputs from quantum gravity. In this talk, I will describe some recent attempts to construct concrete large field inflation models in string theory.