Multi-natural inflation in supergravity and BICEP2

Abstract

We revisit the recently proposed multi-natural inflation and its realization in supergravity in light of the BICEP2 results. Multi-natural inflation is a single-field inflation model where the inflaton potential consists of multiple sinusoidal functions, and it is known that a sizable running spectral index can be generated, which relaxes the tension between the BICEP2 and the Planck results. In this paper we show that multi-natural inflation can accommodate a wide range of values of (ns,r), including the spectral index close to or even above unity. This will be favored if the tension is resolved by other sources such as dark radiation, hot dark matter, or non-zero neutrino mass. We also discuss the implications for the implementation in string theory.