Starobinsky-type inflation in dynamical supergravity breaking scenarios

Abstract

In the context of dynamical breaking of local supersymmetry (supergravity), including the Deser-Zumino super-Higgs effect, for the simple but quite representative cases of N=1, D=4 supergravity, we discuss the emergence of Starobinsky-type inflation, due to quantum corrections in the effective action arising from integrating out gravitino fields in their massive phase. This type of inflation may occur after a first-stage small-field inflation that characterises models near the origin of the one-loop effective potential, and it may occur at the non-trivial minima of the latter. Phenomenologically realistic scenarios, compatible with the Planck data, may be expected for the conformal supergravity variants of the basic model.