Dissipative Multi-Field Dynamics from Non-Hermitian Inflationary Potentials

arXiv:2609.00992 · gr-qc, astro-ph.CO · Submitted 2026-09-01 · Read on arXiv

gr-qc, astro-ph.CO

Submitted: 2026-09-01

Updated: 2026-09-01

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: In this work, we develop a perturbative framework for inflation driven by a complex inflaton with non-minimal gravitational coupling and a non-Hermitian potential.

Terminology

Abstract

In this work, we develop a perturbative framework for inflation driven by a complex inflaton with non-minimal gravitational coupling and a non-Hermitian potential. During the observable cosmic microwave background radiation era, the dynamics reduce to an effectively conservative two-field model, preserving the predictions of the α-attractor class and satisfying Planck 2018 and BICEP/Keck constraints on n s, r, and f NL. Near the end of inflation, trajectory bending activates the non-Hermitian sector, triggering geometric reheating. The resulting non-unitary evolution modifies the curvature spectrum and stochastic gravitational-wave background through a calculable damping factor determined by the complex mass eigenvalues. While cosmic microwave background-scale observables remain essentially unchanged, a distinctive suppression emerges in the high-frequency gravitational-wave spectrum (f > 10 squared Hz), potentially testable by future detectors such as the Einstein Telescope and the Big Bang Observer.

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