Stability investigations of isotropic and anisotropic exponential inflation in the Starobinsky-Bel-Robinson gravity

Abstract

In this paper, we would like to examine whether a novel Starobinsky–Bel–Robinson (SBR) gravity model admits stable exponential inflationary solutions with or without spatial anisotropies. As a result, we are able to derive an exact de Sitter inflationary to this SBR model. Furthermore, we observe that an exact Bianchi type I inflationary solution does not exist in the SBR model. However, we find that a modified SBR model, in which the sign of coefficient of [Formula: see text] term is flipped from positive to negative, can admit the corresponding Bianchi type I inflationary solution. Unfortunately, stability analysis using the dynamical system approach indicates that both of these inflationary solutions turn out to be unstable. Interestingly, we show that a stable de Sitter inflationary solution can be obtained in the modified SBR gravity.