
The positive potential energy required for inflation spontaneously breaks supersymmetry and in general gives any would-be inflaton an effective mass of order the inflationary Hubble parameter thus ruling it out as an inflaton. In this paper I give simple conditions on the superpotential that eliminate some potential sources for this mass, and derive a form for the Kahler potential that eliminates the rest. This reduces the problem of constructing a model of inflation in supergravity to that of constructing one in global supersymmetry with the extra conditions $W=W_φ=ψ=0$ during inflation (where $W$ is the superpotential, the inflaton $\inφ$, and $W_ψ\neq0$). I then point out that Kahler 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 $W=W_φ=0$ automatic for $ψ=0$.
15 pages, version to be published in Physical Review D, major changes in presentation, minor changes in content
High Energy Physics - Theory, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph), High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th), Astrophysics (astro-ph), FOS: Physical sciences, Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Theory, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph), High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th), Astrophysics (astro-ph), FOS: Physical sciences, Astrophysics
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