Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 71 4 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Write , where the stated model has , and take . Slow roll givesThus . Absorb the integration constant into to obtainIt follows that , soThe exponential potential has constant and . Inflation requires , whereas reliable slow-roll approximation requires . This is the slow-roll normalization for exponential inflation.
The stated field normalization is a slow-roll result, not an exact solution of the original full equations. Keeping the acceleration and kinetic terms yields the same but , as follows by substituting into both full equations. It agrees to leading order for small slope and is the exponential-potential power-law inflation solution.