Speaker
Description
We present an explicit string realisation of the hybrid inflation scenario within the framework of type IIB flux compactifications in the presence of three magnetised D7-brane stacks. The inflaton is identified with the total internal volume modulus and inflation takes place around a metastable de Sitter vacuum, obtained at the very shallow local minimum of the volume modulus scalar potential. Inflation ends due to the presence of ``waterfall" fields, realized by open string states, that drive the evolution of the Universe from a nearby saddle point towards a global minimum. The vacuum energy can be tuned so as to describe the present state of our Universe.