Power-Law $f(R)$ Gravity Corrected Canonical Scalar Field Inflation

Understand

The effective inflationary Lagrangian is a prominent challenge for theoretical cosmologists, since it may contain imprints of the quantum epoch.

• In view of the fact that higher order curvature terms might be present in the effective inflationary Lagrangian, in this work we introduce the theoretical framework of power-law $f(R)$ gravity corrected canonical scalar field inflation, aiming to study the inflationary dynamics of this new framework.
• The main characteristic of this new theoretical framework is the dominance of a power-law $f(R)$ gravity term $\sim R^n$, with $1<n<2$, compared to the Einstein-Hilbert term $\sim R$.
• In effect, the field equations are controlled by the $R^n$ term in contrast to the Einstein-Hilbert canonical scalar theory.