Supersymmetric moduli stabilization and high-scale inflation

Abstract

We study the back-reaction of moduli fields on the inflaton potential in generic models of F-term inflation. We derive the moduli corrections as a power series in the ratio of Hubble scale and modulus mass. The general result is illustrated with two examples, hybrid inflation and chaotic inflation. We find that in both cases the decoupling of moduli dynamics and inflation requires moduli masses close to the scale of grand unification. For smaller moduli masses the CMB observables are strongly affected.