Inflation in f(R,T) gravity with Double-Well potential

Abstract

In this piece of work, we studied the inflation in the context of ${f(R,T)}$ theory of gravity. We assumed the functional form of ${f(R,T)}$ to be $R+ 16 \pi G \lambda T$, where R is the Ricci scalar, T is the trace of the Energy-Momentum tensor and $\lambda$ is the model parameter. The cosmological observable parameters like scalar spectral index $n_s$ and tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ are estimated for Double-Well potential. We found that for $\lambda = 150$, $n_s$ and $r$ are in good agreement with Planck 2018 data. Further, considering the vacuum expectation value in Double-Well potential to be Planckian, we observed the admissible range of model parameter to be $145 < \lambda < 222$ for which this model remains consistent with Planck 2018 data.