Towards brane-antibrane inflation in type II_A: The holographic MQCD model

We describe type $II_A$ cosmological brane inflation scenarios based on the holographic MQCD model of Aharony et al \cite{Aharony:2010mi}. The scenarios can be related via T-duality to the type $II_B$ KKLMMT model \cite{Kachru:2003sx}. They describe a probe brane configuration of $p$ D4 branes stretching between an $NS5$ and $NS5'$ branes in the holographic background of large $N$ D4 branes. The resulting cosmological models have a Wick-rotated D4-brane metric, with transverse dimensions compactified, and a spiralling brane with flux $p$. In one model, the background has a small nonextremality, and the inflaton is provided by the position of a "sliding" D4-brane, and in the other, the background is supersymmetric, but with a sliding anti-D4-brane. We obtain good and generic inflationary models, though several unknowns remain, in particular about subleading corrections. The usual caveat of volume stabilization generically spoiling slow-roll still applies.