Inflationary Dynamics with Runaway Potentials

Abstract

The evolution of two slow--rolling scalar fields with potentials of the form $V=V_0 ϕ^{-α}\exp(-βϕ^m)$ is studied. Considering different values of the parameters $α$, $β$ and $m$, we derive several new inflationary solutions in which one fields just evolves in the background and is not important for the inflationary dynamics. In addition, we find new solutions where both fields are dynamically important during inflation. Moreover, we discuss the evolution of perturbations in both scalar fields and the spacetime metric, concentrating on the production of entropy perturbations. We find that for a large region in parameter space and initial conditions tensor modes are negligible and that adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations are essentially uncorrelated.