Gauge inflation by kinetic coupled gravity

Abstract: Recently, a new class of inflationary models, so called \emph{gauge-flation} or non-Abelian gauge field inflation has been introduced where the slow-roll inflation is driven by a non-Abelian gauge field $\textbf{A}$ with the field strength $\textbf{F}$. This class of models are based on a gauge field theory having $\textbf{F}^2$ and $\textbf{F}^4$ terms with a non-Abelian gauge group minimally coupled to gravity. Here, we present a new class of such inflationary models based on a gauge field theory having only $\textbf{F}^2$ term with non-Abelian gauge fields non-minimally coupled to gravity. The non-minimal coupling is set up by introducing the Einstein tensor besides the metric tensor within the $\textbf{F}^2$ term, which is called kinetic coupled gravity. A perturbation analysis is performed to confront the inflation under consideration with Planck and BICEP2 results.