Multiple Scalar Fields

Abstract

Inflation is generally considered to be a reasonable solution to many of the fundamental problems within the standard cosmological model [167, 236, 327] . There are a variety of inflationary models which include scalar fields [291], and in scalar field models with an exponential potential [372] the universe inflates at a power-law rate, R(t) ∞ t p, where p > 1 [249]. As we have seen, all ever-expanding scalar field models with an exponential potential experience power-law inflation when the parameter k 2 < 2; i.e., when the potential is sufficiently flat. Exponential potentials arise in many theories of the fundamental interactions including superstring and higherdimensional theories [164, 291] . Typically, “realistic” supergravity theories predict steep exponential potentials [164] (i.e., k 2 > 2), effectively eliminating the possibility of power-law inflation. However, dimensionally reduced higher-dimensional theories also predict numerous scalar fields, and so it is of interest to study models with multiple scalar fields.KeywordsEquilibrium PointScalar FieldField ModelGlobal AttractorPositive Real PartThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.