Gauged Inflation

We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical Abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is assumed to be SU (N + 1) with N ≫ 1. Appealing to a thermodynamical treatment, the ground-state structure of the model is classically determined by a potential for the inflaton field (dynamical monopole condensate) which allows for nontrivially BPS saturated and thereby stable solutions. For T < M P this leads to decoupling of gravity from the inflaton dynamics. The ground state dynamics implies a heat capacity for the vacuum leading to inflation for temperatures comparable to the mass scale M of the potential. The dynamics has an attractor property. In contrast to the usual slow-roll paradigm we have m ≫ H during inflation. As a consequence, density perturbations generated from the inflaton are irrelevant for the formation of large-scale structure, and the model has to be supplemented with an inflaton independent mechanism for the generation of spatial curvature perturbations. Within a small fraction of the Hubble time inflation is terminated by a transition of the theory to its center symmetric phase. The spontaneously broken Z N +1 symmetry stabilizes relic vector bosons in the epochs following inflation. These heavy relics contribute to the cold dark matter of the universe and potentially originate the UHECRs beyond the GZK bound.