On UltraViolet effects in protected inflationary models

Abstract

Inflationary models are usually UV sensitive. Several mechanism have been proposed to protect the necessary features of the potential, and most notably (softly broken) global symmetries as shift-symmetry. We show that, even in presence of these protecting mechanisms, the models maintain a serious UV-dependence. Via an improved effective theory analysis, we show how these corrections could significantly affect the duration of inflation, its robustness against the choice of initial conditions and the regimes that make it possible.