Daniel BaumannDaniel Green2024-02-222024-02-222010-04-2211266708https://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/123456789/63985334 pages, 3 figures.A new mechanism to control Planck-scale corrections to the inflationary eta parameter is proposed. A common approach to the eta problem is to impose a shift symmetry on the inflaton field. However, this symmetry has to remain unbroken by Planck-scale effects, which is a rather strong requirement on possible ultraviolet completions of the theory. In this paper, we show that the breaking of the shift symmetry by Planck-scale corrections can be systematically suppressed if the inflaton field interacts with a conformal sector. The inflaton then receives an anomalous dimension in the conformal field theory, which leads to sequestering of all dangerous high-energy corrections. We analyze a number of models where the mechanism can be seen in action. In our most detailed example we compute the exact anomalous dimensions via a-maximization and show that the eta problem can be solved using only weakly-coupled physics.Cosmology of theories beyond the SM | Supersymmetric effective theories; High Energy Physics - Theory; High Energy Physics - Theory; astro-ph.CO; High Energy Physics - Phenomenologyjournal article10.1007/JHEP09(2010)0572-s2.0-78649775591http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.3801v1