Anatomy of geometrical destabilization of inflation

Abstract

We study geometrical destabilization of inflation with the aim of determining the fate of excited unstable modes. We use numerical lattice simulations to track the dynamics of both the inflaton and the spectator field. We find that geometrical destabilization is a short-lived phenomenon and that a negative feedback loop prevents field fluctuations from growing indefinitely. As a result, fields undergoing geometrical destabilization are merely shifted to a new classical configuration corresponding to a uniform value of the spectator field within a Hubble patch.