Inflation in softly broken Seiberg-Witten models

Abstract

In a recent paper we proposed a new model of inflation based on the soft-breaking of N=2 supersymmetric SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. The advantage of such a model is the fact that we can write an exact expression for the effective scalar potential, including perturbative and non-perturbative effects. We find that the scalar condensate that plays the role of the inflaton can drive a long period of cosmological expansion in the weak coupling Higgs region, and end inflation in the strong coupling monopole region, where reheating takes place. The model predicts the right amount of temperature anisotropies in the microwave background, a precise spectral tilt, $n=0.91$, and negligible gravitational wave perturbations.

Comments: 5 pages, LaTeX with sprocl.sty (included), 1 figure (included with epsf). To appear in the Conference Proceedings of COSMO-97