Towards Matter Inflation in Heterotic String Theory

Understand

Recently, a class of inflation models in supergravity with gauge non-singlet matter fields as the inflaton has been proposed.

• It is based on a `tribrid' structure in the superpotential and on a Heisenberg symmetry for solving the eta-problem.
• We suggest that a generalization of this model class may be suitable for realising inflation in heterotic orbifold compactifications, where the Heisenberg symmetry is a property of the tree-level K"ahler potential of untwisted matter fields.
• We discuss moduli stabilization in this setup and propose a mechanism to stabilize the modulus associated to the inflaton, which respects the symmetry in the large radius limit.