Cyclic universe and uniform rate inflation in loop quantum cosmology

We investigate uniform rate inflationary universe in the framework of loop quantum cosmology (LQC) and find that this seemingly simple inflationary model is interlinked with various concepts such as cyclic evolution, HNI inflation and polymer quantized scalar fields, when the background spacetime is loop quantized. The potential for an \textit{exactly} uniform rate inflation in a loop quantized FRW spacetime turns out to be a polymerized version of the corresponding potential in general relativity, which mimics the potentials for a polymerized scalar field and that for hybrid natural inflation (HNI). There is also a radical modification of the background spacetime, leading to a cyclic universe with identical epochs separated by quantum bounces which replace the classical singularity. The energy density and Hubble rate are bounded. The predictions for cosmological perturbations depend on the value of the field at the end of inflation. The parameter space is explored to compare the results for spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio with observational constraints.