Non-Minimal Dilaton Inflation from the Effective Gluodynamics

Abstract

We develop a nonminimal dilaton-inflation model in which the inflaton is the lightest scalar excitation of a hidden confining gauge theory. The Migdal--Shifman anomaly-matching action fixes a logarithmic contribution to the scalar potential, $V_{\rm MS}=A\varphi^4[\ln(\varphi/\mu)-1/4]$, with $(A,\mu)$ mapped to the scalar mass and vacuum condensate. Embedding this sector in the leading curved-space EFT introduces the independent Wilson coefficients $\lambda$ and $\xi$, and the resulting Einstein-frame dynamics yields a plateau with a calculable anomaly-induced deformation. We analyze the pure MS limit as a baseline, derive the $\mu$--$\lambda$ reparametrization, state finite-window RG-control conditions, and impose both the nonminimal-gravity cutoff and the intrinsic confining-sector gap. Exact slow-roll scans show that the viable regime combines the usual large-$\xi$ attractor behavior with a logarithmic imprint tied directly to nonperturbative trace-anomaly matching.