Impact of general reionization scenarios on extraction of inflationary parameters

Abstract

Determination of whether the Harrison--Zel'dovich spectrum for primordial scalar perturbations is consistent with observations is sensitive to assumptions about the reionization scenario. In light of this result, we revisit constraints on inflationary models using more general reionization scenarios. While the bounds on the tensor-to-scalar ratio are largely unmodified, when different reionization schemes are addressed, hybrid models are back into the inflationary game. In the general reionization picture, we reconstruct both the shape and amplitude of the inflaton potential. We find a broader spectrum of potential shapes when relaxing the simple reionization restriction. An upper limit of $10^{16}$ GeV to the amplitude of the potential is found, regardless of the assumptions on the reionization history.

10 Pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (6)

• High resolution CMB power spectrum from the complete ACBAR data set
• Inflation model constraints from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe three-year data
• The Cosmic Microwave Background and the Ionization History of the Universe
• Latest inflation model constraints from cosmic microwave background measurements
• Reionization constraints from five-year WMAP data
• Harrison-Z'eldovich primordial spectrum is consistent with observations

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Relic Neutrino Degeneracies and Their Impact on Cosmological Parameters
• Reionization of the Intergalactic Medium
• A Semiblind Reconstruction of the History of Effective Number of Neutrinos Using CMB Data