U(1)B-L extra-natural inflation with Standard Model on a brane

The interrelation between inflationary cosmology and new physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) is studied in a U(1)(B-L) extension of the SM embedded in a (4 + 1)-dimensional spacetime. In the scenario we study, the inflaton arises from the Wilson loop of the U(1)(B-L) gauge group winding an extradimensional cycle. Particular attention is paid to the coupling between the inflaton and SM particles that are confined on a brane localized in the extra dimension. We find that the inflaton decay channels are rather restricted in this scenario and the resulting reheating temperature is relatively low. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.