D-term inflation

Abstract

We show that inflation which is dominated by the D-term density avoids the\n`slow-roll' problem of inflation in supergravity. Such an inflationary scenario\ncan naturally emerge in theories with non-anomalous or anomalous U(1) gauge\nsymmetry. In the latter case the scale of inflation is fixed by the\nGreen--Schwarz mechanism of anomaly cancellation. The crucial point is that the\n(super)gravity-mediated curvature of all the scalar fields (and, in particular,\nof the inflaton), which in the standard F-dominated case is of the order of the\nHubble parameter, is absent in the D-term inflation case. The curvature of\nmoduli and of all other flat directions during such an inflation crucially\ndepends on their gauge charges.\n