Generalized Fayet–Iliopoulos D-terms in supergravity and inflation driven by supersymmetry breaking

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Lars Bink, a close friend of IA, one of the pioneers of supergravity and string theory and a physics promoter over the world and particularly in the developing countries. We review recent developments on generalized Fayet–Iliopoulos D-terms in four-dimensional supergravity and discuss their applications to natural models of inflation driven by supersymmetry breaking with the superpartner of the goldstino (sgoldstino) playing the role of the inflaton.