Simple exercises to flatten your potential
  We show how backreaction of the inflaton potential energy on heavy scalar
fields can flatten the inflationary potential, as the heavy fields adjust to
their most energetically favorable configuration. This mechanism operates in
previous UV-complete examples of axion monodromy inflation - flattening a
would-be quadratic potential to one linear in the inflaton field - but occurs
more generally, and we illustrate the effect with several examples. Special
choices of compactification minimizing backreaction may realize chaotic
inflation with a quadratic potential, but we argue that a flatter potential
such as power-law inflation $V(\phi) \propto \phi^p$ with $p<2$ is a more
generic option at sufficiently large values of $\phi$.
