MSSM inflation, dark matter, and the LHC

Inflation can occur near a point of inflection in the potential of flat directions of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). In this paper we elaborate on the complementarity between the bounds from cosmic microwave background measurements, dark matter, and particle physics phenomenology in determining the underlying parameters of MSSM inflation by specializing to the minimal supergravity scenario. We show that the future measurements from the Large Hadron Collider in tandem with all these constraints will significantly restrict the allowed parameter space. We also suggest a new perspective on the fine tuning issue of MSSM inflation. With quantum corrections taken into account, the necessary condition between the soft supersymmetry breaking parameters in the inflaton potential can be satisfied at scales of interest without a fine tuning of their boundary values at a high scale. The requirement that this happens at the inflection point determines a dimensionless coupling, which is associated with a nonrenormalizable interaction term in the Lagrangian and has no bearing for phenomenology, to very high accuracy.