New Kähler invariant Fayet–Iliopoulos terms in supergravity and cosmological applications

I. Antoniadis, F. Rondeau
2020 European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields  
Recently, a new type of constant Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) terms was introduced in N = 1 supergravity, which do not require the gauging of the R-symmetry. We revisit and generalise these constructions, building a new class of Kähler invariant FI terms parametrised by a function of the gravitino mass as functional of the chiral superfields, which is then used to describe new models of inflation. They are based on a no-scale supergravity model of the inflaton chiral multiplet, supplemented by an
more » ... an vector multiplet with the new FI-term. We show that the inflaton potential is compatible with the CMB observational data, with a vacuum energy at the minimum that can be tuned to a tiny positive value. Finally, the axionic shift symmetry can be gauged by the U (1) which becomes massive. These models offer a mechanism for fixing the gravitino mass in no-scale supergravities, that corresponds to a flat direction of the scalar potential in the absence of the new FI-term; its origin in string theory is an interesting open problem. Eur. Phys. J. C (2020) 80:346
doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-020-7912-z fatcat:z3fub6tjmbe7fkhzpvgzi57lcu