Slow-roll inflation in (R+R*4) gravity

Abstract

We reconsider the toy-model of topological inflation, based on the R*4-modified gravity. By using its equivalence to the certain scalar-tensor gravity model in four space-time dimensions, we compute the inflaton scalar potential and investigate a possibility of inflation. We confirm the existence of the slow-roll inflation with an exit. However, the model suffers from the eta-problem that gives rise to the unacceptable value of the spectral index n_s of scalar perturbations.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX, misprints corrected and references update