Kinetically modified nonminimal chaotic inflation

Abstract

We consider Supersymmetric (SUSY) and non-SUSY models of chaotic inflation based on the phi^n potential with 2<=n<=6. We show that the coexistence of a nonminimal coupling to gravity, fR=1+cR phi^(n/2), with a kinetic mixing of the form fK=cK fR^m can accommodate values of the spectral index, ns, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, favored by the Bicep2/Keck Array and Planck results for 0<=m<=4 and 2.5x10^(-4)<=rRK=cR/cK^{n/4}<=1, where the upper limit is not imposed for n=2. Inflation can be attained for subplanckian inflaton values with the corresponding effective theories retaining the perturbative unitarity up to the Planck scale.