On the viability of Locked Inflation

Abstract

We review locked inflation and we critically address phenomenological and consistency issues thathave appeared in the literature. A natural window of opportunity is found for the original scenario.Moreover, a simple way to enlarge the parameter space is proposed by considering an equivalentlynatural structure for the locking field. Finally, an estimate of the amount of topological defects atthe end of inflation is given; due to the low inflationary scale, it turns out to be negligible.