The Anomaly Potential: A Quantum-Gravitational Origin for Cosmological Potentials and Reheating Phenomenology

Here, I propose a novel mechanism for the generation of cosmological scalar potentials, based on the hypothesis that the unification field Pi (which defines hbar_eff and G_eff) obtains its potential dynamically via quantum-gravitational effects. We demonstrate that simpler potential-generation hypotheses (classical potentials or local 1-loop probe fields) are inconsistent or are numerical artifacts. Instead, we demonstrate that the **Conformal Trace Anomaly** (Riegert Action) for a GUT-scale matter spectrum analytically generates a non-derivative effective potential of the form V_eff ~ c * Pi^4 * ln(Pi^2 / mu^2). While this potential induces a problematic Anti-de Sitter (V < 0) vacuum if mu is static, we show that the only self-consistent renormalization choice in a dynamic cosmological background is mu(t) ~ H(t). This "Cosmological RG" flow resolves the AdS vacuum problem and defines a "rolling minimum" Pi_min(t) ~ H(t). Finally, we simulate the phenomenology of this mechanism (the "Dynamic Trojan") and demonstrate that at the end of inflation, the Pi field rolls to follow its minimum, generating a friction term Pi_dot / Pi ~ 0.4H. This friction is a sufficient source for preheating and predicts a unique gravitational wave (GW) signature in the GHz band.