Red, Straight, no bends: primordial power spectrum reconstruction from CMB and large-scale structure

Abstract

We present a minimally parametric, model independent reconstruction of the shape of the primordial power spectrum. Our smoothing spline technique is well-suited to search for smooth features such as deviations from scale invariance, and deviations from a power law such as running of the spectral index or small-scale power suppression. We use a comprehensive set of the state-of the art cosmological data: {\it Planck} observations of the temperature and polarisation anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background, WiggleZ and Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 galaxy power spectra and the Canada-France-Hawaii Lensing Survey correlation function. This reconstruction strongly supports the evidence for a power law primordial power spectrum with a red tilt and disfavours deviations from a power law power spectrum including small-scale power suppression such as that induced by significantly massive neutrinos. This offers a powerful confirmation of the inflationary paradigm, justifying the adoption of the inflationary prior in cosmological analyses.

17 pages, 10 figures

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• Model Independent Prediction of the Spectral Index of Primordial Quantum Fluctuations
• Reconstructing the EFT of Inflation from Cosmological Data
• Exploring Early and Late Cosmology with Next Generation Surveys
• Knot reconstruction of the scalar primordial power spectrum with Planck, ACT, and SPT CMB data
• Bayesian inference methodology for Primordial Power Spectrum reconstructions from Large Scale Structure
• Constraining the primordial power spectrum using a differentiable likelihood
• J-PAS: forecast on the primordial power spectrum reconstruction