Topological hybrid inflation in brane world

Abstract

In this paper we show that certain types of cosmological brane configurations may induce topological inflation. In generic models for topological inflation, there is a strict bound for the potential of the inflaton field. Naively, it seems that these constraints can be removed if inflation starts with a hybrid potential. However, it is difficult to combine topological inflation and hybrid inflation, because of the difference in their initial conditions. In this paper, we show some examples in which a novel type of topological inflation is realized with the unconventional hybrid potential.