D-Flation

Understand

In a recent paper we showed how Starobinsky-like inflation could emerge from dilaton dynamics in brane cosmology scenarios based on string theory, in which our universe is represented as a three-brane and the effective potential acquires a constant term from a density of effectively point-like non-perturbative defects on the brane: "D-particles".

• Here we explore how quantum fluctuations of the ensemble of D-particles during the inflationary period may modify the effective inflationary potential due to the dilaton.
• We then discuss two specific ways in which an enhanced ratio of tensor to scalar perturbations may arise: via either a condensate of vector fields with a Born-Infeld action that may be due to such recoil fluctuations, or graviton production in the D-particle vacuum.