Natural Chaotic Inflation in Supergravity

Abstract

We propose a chaotic inflation model in supergravity. In the model the K\"ahler potential has a Nambu-Goldstone-like shift symmetry of the inflaton chiral multiplet which ensures the flatness of the inflaton potential beyond the Planck scale. We show that the chaotic inflation naturally takes place by introducing a small breaking term of the shift symmetry in the superpotential. This may open a new branch of model building for inflationary universe in the framework of supergravity.