Pole Inflation. Shift Symmetry and Universal Corrections

An appealing explanation for the Planck data is provided by inflationary models with a non-canonical kinetic term: a Laurent expansion of the kinetic function translates into a potential with a nearly shift-symmetric plateau in canonical fields. The shift symmetry can be broken at large field values by including higher-order poles. We show that the resulting corrections to the inflationary dynamics and predictions are universal at lowest order, and can induce power loss at large angular scales. At lowest order there are no corrections from a pole of one order higher; this is referred to as extended no-scale in string theory and we explain why this is a general phenomenon. Finally, we outline which other corrections may arise as string loop corrections.