cosmology

Corrections to inflationary models induced by non-minimal coupling between scalar field and curvature

arXiv:2607.10679

summary

The paper examines how a specific non‑minimal coupling between a scalar field and curvature alters inflationary potentials and cosmological perturbation parameters, while showing that reheating dynamics remain similar to the minimally coupled case, and provides a model‑independent classification based on the tensor‑to‑scalar ratio versus spectral index expansion.

Abstract

In this paper, we consider possible corrections to the characteristics of inflationary models based on a specific parametrization of the non-minimal coupling between the scalar field and curvature. At the inflationary stage, these corrections lead to a deformation of the scalar field potential and a corresponding deviation in the determination of the cosmological perturbation parameters. At the same time, it is shown that the proposed parametrization yields a description of the reheating stage dynamics completely analogous to the case of Einstein gravity with minimal coupling between the scalar field and curvature. For a model-independent analysis of inflationary corrections induced by a non-minimal coupling, a classification of inflationary scenarios based on the expansion in series of the dependence of the tensor-to-scalar ratio on the spectral index of scalar perturbations is considered. It is also shown that this approach allows for the inclusion of well-known inflationary models as special cases.

21 pages

Topics & keywords

#inflation#non-minimal coupling#scalar field#cosmological perturbations#reheatingtensor-to-scalar ratiospectral indexpotential deformationEinstein gravityparametrization
Corrections to inflationary models induced by non-minimal coupling between scalar field and curvature · wovepaper