Structural Index of Models, Assumptions, and Motivations in the Inflationary Literature

This document presents a structural index of the inflationary literature, mapping four decades of model‑building into a coherent framework defined by degeneracy, symmetry, and assumption lineage. Rather than cataloguing models by potential shape or historical sequence, the index identifies the generative assumptions that motivated each class, traces how those assumptions diverged into distinct branches, and shows how many of those branches later collapse into a small number of structural attractors. The result is a finite, assumption‑explicit map of previous art that reveals the underlying geometry of the inflationary landscape: a low‑dimensional manifold spanned by curvature, symmetry protection, and kinetic structure. By organizing the literature according to these structural axes, the index clarifies the relationships between canonical, non‑canonical, plateau/attractor, hilltop, hybrid, and symmetry‑protected models, and highlights the conceptual pivots that shaped their development. This structural perspective provides the historical and conceptual foundation for the companion audit Re‑Indexing the Inflaton, where the surviving landscape is analyzed under modern observational and theoretical constraints.