Confronting hybrid inflation in supergravity with CMB data

Abstract

$F$-term GUT inflation coupled to N=1 Supergravity is confronted with CMB data. Corrections to the string mass-per-unit-length away from the Bogomolny limit are taken into account. We find that a superpotential coupling $10^{-7}/\text{mcN}\lesssim \kappa \lesssim 10^{-2}/\text{mcN}$, with $\text{mcN}$ the dimension of the Higgs-representation, is still compatible with the data. The parameter space is enlarged in warm inflation, as well as in the curvaton and inhomogeneous reheat scenario. $F$-strings formed at the end of $P$-term inflation are also considered. Because these strings satisfy the Bogomolny bound the bounds are stronger: the gauge coupling is constrained to the range $10^{-7}<g<10^{-4}$.

Comments: 36 pages, 15 figures