Prepared for submission to JCAP Accidental Inflation from Kähler

Abstract. We analyze the possibility of realizing inflation with a subsequent dS vacuum in the Kähler uplifting scenario. The inclusion of several quantum corrections to the 4d effec-tive action evades previous no-go theorems and allows for construction of simple and successful models of string inflation. The predictions of several benchmark models are in accord with current observations, i.e., a red spectral index, negligible non-gaussianity, and spectral distor-tions similar to the simplest models of inflation. A particularly interesting subclass of models are “left-rolling ” ones, where the overall volume of the compactified dimensions shrinks during inflation. We call this phenomenon “inflation by deflation ” (IBD), where deflation refers to the internal manifold. This subclass has the appealing features of being insensitive to initial conditions, avoiding the overshooting problem, and allowing for observable running α ∼ 0.012 and enhanced tensor-to-scalar ratio r ∼ 10−5. The latter results differ significantly from many string inflation models. ar X i