title: A delicate universe: compactification obstacles to D-brane inflation.
abstract: We investigate whether explicit models of warped D-brane inflation are possible in string compactifications. To this end, we study the potential for D3-brane motion in a warped conifold that includes holomorphically embedded D7-branes involved in moduli stabilization. The presence of the D7-branes significantly modifies the inflaton potential. We construct an example based on a very simple and symmetric embedding due to Kuperstein, z1= const, in which it is possible to fine-tune the potential so that slow-roll inflation can occur. The resulting model is rather delicate: inflation occurs in the vicinity of an inflection point, and the cosmological predictions are extremely sensitive to the precise shape of the potential.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Baumann
authors.forename: Anatoly
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dymarsky
authors.forename: Igor R
authors.initials: IR
authors.lastname: Klebanov
authors.forename: Liam
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McAllister
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Steinhardt