Higgs inflation from new Kahler potential

We introduce a new class of models of Higgs inflation using the superconformal approach to supergravity by modifying the Miller geometry. Using the above-mentioned mechanism, we construct a phenomenological functional form of a new Kahler potential followed by construction of various types of models which are characterized by a superconformal symmetry breaking parameter chi. Depending on the numerical values of chi we classify the proposed models into three categories. Models with minimal coupling are identified by chi = +/- 2/3 branch which are made up of shift symmetry preserving flat directions. We also propose various other models by introducing a non-minimal coupling of the inflaton field to gravity described by chi not equal 2/3 branch. We employ all these proposed models to study the inflationary paradigm by estimating the major cosmological observables and confront them with recent observational data from WMAP9 along with other complementary data sets, as well as independently with PLANCK. We also mention an allowed range of non-minimal couplings and the Yukawa type of couplings appearing in the proposed models used for cosmological parameter estimation. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Funded by SCOAP(3).