Inflation with non-minimal coupling: Metric vs. Palatini formulations

We analyze non-minimally coupled scalar field theories in metric (second-order) and Palatini (first-order) formalisms in a comparative fashion. After contrasting them in a general setup, we specialize to inflation and find that the two formalisms differ in their predictions for various cosmological parameters. The main reason is that dependencies on the non-minimal coupling parameter are different in the two formalisms. For successful inflation, the Palatini approach prefers a much larger value for the non-minimal coupling parameter than the Metric approach. Unlike the Metric formalism, in Palatini, the inflaton stays well below the Planck scale whereby providing a natural inflationary epoch.