Unified framework for Early Dark Energy from $\alpha$-attractors
  One of the most appealing approaches to ease the Hubble tension is the
inclusion of an early dark energy (EDE) component that adds energy to the
Universe in a narrow redshift window around the time of recombination and
dilutes faster than radiation afterwards. In this paper, we analyze EDE in the
framework of $\alpha$-attractor models. As well known, the success in
alleviating the Hubble tension crucially depends on the shape of the energy
injection. We show how different types of energy injections can be easily
obtained, thanks to the freedom in choosing the functional form of the
potential inspired by $\alpha$-attractor models. To confirm our intuition we
perform an MCMC analysis for three representative cases and find indeed that
$H_0$ is significantly larger than in $\Lambda$CDM like in other EDE models.
Unlike axion-driven EDE models with super Planckian decay constant, the
curvature of EDE models required by the data is natural in the context of
recent theoretical developments in $\alpha$-attractors.
