CMB from a Gauss-Bonnet-induced de Sitter fixed point

Abstract

In the gravitational effective theories including higher curvature terms, cosmological solutions can have nontrivial de Sitter fixed points. We study phenomenological implications of such points, focusing on a theory in which a massive scalar field is nonminimally coupled to the Euler density. We first analyze the phase portrait of the dynamical system and show that the fixed point can be a sink or a saddle, depending on the strength of the coupling. Then, we compute the perturbation spectra generated in the vicinity of the fixed point in order to investigate whether the fixed point may be considered as cosmic inflation. We find parameter regions that are consistent with the cosmological data, given that the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background are seeded by the fluctuations generated near the fixed point. Future observation may be used to further constrain the coupling function of this model. We also comment briefly on the swampland conjecture.