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SUMMARY:Aspects of Non-Canonical Inflation - Rhiannon Gwyn\, Kings College
  London
DTSTART:20100219T130000Z
DTEND:20100219T140000Z
UID:TALK23341@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:David Kubiznak
DESCRIPTION:I'm going to talk about inflation in single-field models with 
 non-canonical kinetic terms of the form X to power n\, where X = 1/2 (dphi
 /dt)^2. These terms arise naturally in an EFT approach to modelling inflat
 ion\, and can also be seen to arise from certain string theory embeddings\
 , such as DBI inflation. We have been able to give a general formalism for
  finding solutions of the equations of motion corresponding to non-canonic
 al inflation\, which can be shown to be an attractor in phase space wherev
 er it exists. However\, not every Lagrangian with higher-derivative kineti
 c operators supports non-canonical inflation\, and not every set of initia
 l conditions in a suitable theory will give rise to an inflationary trajec
 tory. We give some sufficient conditions required for a Lagrangian to supp
 ort inflation in the non-canonical regime\, and investigate the problem of
  fine-tuning. We find that non-canonical kinetic terms tend to reduce the 
 severity of the fine-tuning problem in general. The talk is based on \narX
 iv:0912.1857 and arXiv:1002.2639 with Paul Franche\, Bret Underwood and Al
 isha Wissanji.
LOCATION:Pavilion B Potter Room (B1.19)
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