DBI N-flation John Ward1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria BC, V8P 1A1, Canada Abstract We investigate DBI inflation using N multiple branes and show how the configuration is equivalent to a single wrapped D5-brane with flux. We then show how 1/N corrections can be implemented, and we examine the sound speed and levels of non-Gaussianities in two distinct cases. For models with constant warping we find that the non-Gaussian amplitude is bounded from above (as a function of γ). For AdS backgrounds we find that the signature is generally large and positive, although is no longer globally defined over the full phase space. We then investigate an inflationary mechanism using a representation cascade, whereby the transition from a reducible representation to the irrep drives inflation. arXiv:0711.0760v3 [hep-th] 26 Nov 2007
[email protected] 1 Introduction In the absence of any direct test of string theory, cosmology remains the best laboratory with which to test string theoretic models [1]. Over the past few years we have witnessed cosmology become a precision science, with COBE, WMAP and SDSS [2] providing crucial support for the flatness of the universe, the existence of dark energy and for a period of cosmic inflation. Whilst the dark energy puzzle remains an outstanding problem for theoretical physics in general [3], inflation has been a carefully developed paradigm with many explicit models. Unfortunately as far as inflationary model building is concerned, there are still many problems to be resolved. Particularly since many of the models suffer from super-Planckian VEV’s for the inflaton field [1], and therefore find themselves in a region where quantum gravity effects are non-negligible.