Generating the Curvature Perturbation at the End of Inflation in String Theory

Abstract

In brane inflationary scenarios, the cosmological perturbations are supposed to originate from the vacuum fluctuations of the inflaton field corresponding to the position of the brane. We show that a significant, and possibly dominant, contribution to the curvature perturbation is generated at the end of inflation through the vacuum fluctuations of fields, other than the inflaton, which are light during the inflationary trajectory and become heavy at the brane-anti brane annihilation. These fields appear generically in string compactifications where the background geometry has exact or approximate isometries and parametrize the internal angular directions of the brane.