2 v 1 1 6 A ug 1 99 4 A General Supergravity Formalism for a Naturally Flat Inflaton Potential ∗

A globally supersymmetric model of inflation will not work in a generic supergravity theory because the higher order, nonrenormalisable supergravity corrections destroy the flatness of the inflaton’s potential. In this talk I derive a form for the Kähler potential which eliminates these corrections if W = Wφ = ψ = 0 during inflation (where W is the superpotential, the inflaton ∈ φ, and Wψ 6= 0). I then point out that Kähler potentials of the required form often occur in superstrings and that the target space duality symmetries of superstrings often contain R-parities which would make W =Wφ = 0 automatic for ψ = 0. KUNS 1286 hep-ph/9408302 Talk given at the Seventh Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity, Stanford University, 24-29 July 1994, and based on Ref. 1. e-mail address: [email protected]