A terminal velocity on the landscape: particle production near extra species loci in higher dimensions

Applications of vector bundles and moduli spaces in mathematical physics (twistor theory, instantons, quantum field theory) (14D21) Yang-Mills and other gauge theories in quantum field theory (81T13) String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory (81T30) Supersymmetric field theories in quantum mechanics (81T60) Unified quantum theories (81V22) Kaluza-Klein and other higher-dimensional theories (83E15) Relativistic cosmology (83F05)

Abstract: We investigate particle production near extra species loci (ESL) in a higher dimensional field space and derive a speed limit in moduli space at weak coupling. This terminal velocity is set by the characteristic ESL-separation and the coupling of the extra degrees of freedom to the moduli, but it is independent of the moduli's potential if the dimensionality of the field space is considerably larger than the dimensionality of the loci, D >> d. Once the terminal velocity is approached, particles are produced at a plethora of nearby ESLs, preventing a further increase in speed via their backreaction. It is possible to drive inflation at the terminal velocity, providing a generalization of trapped inflation with attractive features: we find that more than sixty e-folds of inflation for sub-Planckian excursions in field space are possible if ESLs are ubiquitous, without fine tuning of initial conditions and less tuned potentials. We construct a simple, observationally viable model with a slightly red scalar power-spectrum and suppressed gravitational waves; we comment on the presence of additional observational signatures originating from IR-cascading and individual massive particles. We also show that moduli-trapping at an ESL is suppressed for D >> d, hindering dynamical selection of high-symmetry vacua on the landscape based on this mechanism.

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