Wilson line inflation

We present a general setup for inflation in string theory where the inflaton field corresponds to Wilson lines in compact space in the presence of magnetic fluxes. T-dualities and limits on the value of the magnetic fluxes relate this system to the standard D-brane inflation scenarios, such as brane-antibrane inflation, D3/D7 brane inflation and different configurations of branes at angles. This can then be seen as a generalised approach to inflation from open string modes. Inflation ends when the Wilson lines achieve a critical value and an open string mode becomes tachyonic. Then hybrid-like inflation, including its cosmic string remnants, is realized in string theory beyond the brane annihilation picture. Our formalism can be incorporated within flux-induced moduli stabilisation mechanisms in type IIB strings. Also, contrary to the standard D-brane separation, Wilson lines can be considered in heterotic string models. We provide explicit examples to illustrate similarities and differences of our mechanism to D-brane inflation. In particular we present an example in which the η problem present in brane inflation models is absent in our case. We have examples with both blue and red tilted spectral index and remnant cosmic string tension Gμ ≲ 10^-7.