Unified Model of D-Term Inflation

Hybrid inflation, driven by a Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) D term, is an intriguing inflationary model. In its usual formulation, it however suffers from several shortcomings. These pertain to the origin of the FI mass scale, the stability of scalar fields during inflation, gravitational corrections in supergravity, as well as to the latest constraints from the cosmic microwave background. We demonstrate that these issues can be remedied if D-term inflation is realized in the context of strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theories. We suppose that the D term is generated in consequence of dynamical supersymmetry breaking. Moreover, we assume canonical kinetic terms in the Jordan frame as well as an approximate shift symmetry along the inflaton direction. This provides us with a unified picture of D-term inflation and high-scale supersymmetry breaking. The D term may be associated with a gauged U(1)_B-L, so that the end of inflation spontaneously breaks B-L in the visible sector.