Hill-climbing inflation

Abstract

We propose a new class of inflationary models in which inflation takes place while the inflaton is climbing up a potential hill due to a coupling to gravity. We study their attractor behavior, and investigate its relation with known attractors. We also discuss a possible realization of this type of models with natural inflation, and show that the inflationary predictions come well within the region consistent with the observation of the cosmic microwave background. © 2017 American Physical Society