Conventional wisdom says that a chaotic inflation model with a power-law potential is ruled out by the recent Planck-BICEP/Keck results. We find, however, that the model can be assisted by a non-minimally coupled scalar field and still provides a successful inflation. Considering a power-law chaotic inflation model of the typeV∼φnwithn= {2, 4/3, 1, 2/3, 1/3}, we show thatn= 1/3 (n= {2/3, 1/3}) may be revived with the help of the quadratic (quartic) non-minimal coupling of the assistant field to gravity.

The recently suggested Festina-Lente (FL) bound provides a lower bound on the masses of U(1) charged particles in terms of the positive vacuum energy. Since the charged particle masses in the Standard Model (SM) are generated by the Higgs mechanism, the FL bound provides a testbed of consistent Higgs potentials in the current dark energy-dominated universe as well as during inflation. We study the implications of the FL bound on the UV behavior of the Higgs potential for a miniscule vacuum energy, as in the current universe. We also present values of the Hubble parameter and the Higgs vacuum expectation value allowed by the FL bound during inflation, which implies that the Higgs cannot stay at the electroweak scale during this epoch.

The recently suggested Festina-Lente (FL) bound provides a lower bound on the masses of U(1) charged particles in terms of the positive vacuum energy. Since the charged particle masses in the Standard Model (SM) are generated by the Higgs mechanism, the FL bound provides a testbed of consistent Higgs potentials in the current dark energydominated universe as well as during inflation. We study the implications of the FL bound on the UV behavior of the Higgs potential for a miniscule vacuum energy, as in the current universe. We also present values of the Hubble parameter and the Higgs vacuum expectation value allowed by the FL bound during inflation, which implies that the Higgs cannot stay at the electroweak scale during this epoch.

The effects of a scalar field, known as the “assistant field,” which nonminimally couples to gravity, on single-field inflationary models are studied. The analysis provides analytical expressions for inflationary observables such as the spectral index (ns ), the tensor-to-scalar ratio (r), and the local-type nonlinearity parameter (f NL (local)). The presence of the assistant field leads to a lowering of ns and r in most of the parameter space, compared to the original predictions. In some cases, ns may increase due to the assistant field. This revives compatibility between ruled-out single-field models and the latest observations by Planck-BICEP/Keck. The results are demonstrated using three example models: loop inflation, power-law inflation, and hybrid inflation.