A Statistical Approach to Multifield Inflation: Many-field Perturbations
  Beyond Slow Roll
  We study multifield contributions to the scalar power spectrum in an ensemble
of six-field inflationary models obtained in string theory. We identify
examples in which inflation occurs by chance, near an approximate inflection
point, and we compute the primordial perturbations numerically, both exactly
and using an array of truncated models. The scalar mass spectrum and the number
of fluctuating fields are accurately described by a simple random matrix model.
During the approach to the inflection point, bending trajectories and
violations of slow roll are commonplace, and 'many-field' effects, in which
three or more fields influence the perturbations, are often important. However,
in a large fraction of models consistent with constraints on the tilt the
signatures of multifield evolution occur on unobservably large scales. Our
scenario is a concrete microphysical realization of quasi-single-field
inflation, with scalar masses of order $H$, but the cubic and quartic couplings
are typically too small to produce detectable non-Gaussianity. We argue that
our results are characteristic of a broader class of models arising from
multifield potentials that are natural in the Wilsonian sense.
