Trapped Quintessential Inflation from Flux Compactifications

Abstract

Quintessential inflation is studied using a string modulus as the inflaton - quintessence field. It is assumed that the modulus crosses an enhanced symmetry point (ESP) in field space. Particle production at the ESP temporarily traps the modulus resulting in a period of inflation. After reheating, the modulus freezes due to cosmological friction at a large value, such that its scalar potential is dominated by contributions due to fluxes in the extra dimensions. The modulus remains frozen until the present, when it can become quintessence.

Comments: latex (WS-Proc), 12 pages, 4 figures. Contribution to the Proceedings of the IDM2006 Conference