Inflation in Wess--Zumino Models

Abstract

We show that a class of Wess--Zumino models lead to inflation in supersymmetry and supergravity. This is due to the existence of a classically flat direction generic to these models. The pseudomodulus that parametrizes this flat direction is the inflaton and obtains a small mass due to either one--loop or supergravity corrections giving rise to slow--roll inflation. At the end of inflation, the fields roll to a supersymmetric vacuum that arises from explicit R symmetry breaking.