The running of featureful primordial power spectra
arXiv:1701.08977 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.95.123534
Abstract
Current measurements of the temperature and polarization anisotropy power spectra of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) seem to indicate that the naive expectation for the slow-roll hierarchy within the most simple inflationary paradigm may not be respected in nature. We show that a primordial power spectra with localized features could in principle give rise to the observed slow-roll anarchy when fitted to a featureless power spectrum. Future CMB missions have the key to disentangle among the two possible paradigms and firmly establish the slow-roll mechanism as the responsible one for the inflationary period in the early universe. From a model comparison perspective, and assuming that nature has chosen a featureless primordial power spectrum, we find that, while with mock Planck data there is only weak evidence against a model with localized features, upcoming CMB measurements may provide strong evidence against such a non-standard primordial power spectrum.
8 pages, 2 figures; Late resubmission to match published version
References in corpus (18)
- Bayes in the sky: Bayesian inference and model selection in cosmology
- Observational Signatures and Non-Gaussianities of General Single Field Inflation
- Monodromy in the CMB: Gravity Waves and String Inflation
- PolyChord: nested sampling for cosmology
- Generation and Characterization of Large Non-Gaussianities in Single Field Inflation
- Inflation and WMAP three year data: Features have a Future!
- CMB polarization features from inflation versus reionization
- Energy Transfer in Multi Field Inflation and Cosmological Perturbations
- Probing primordial features with future galaxy surveys
- Towards a measurement of the spectral runnings
- The Future of Primordial Features with Large-Scale Structure Surveys
- Precise measurements of inflationary features with 21 cm observations
- Primordial features and Planck polarization
- Alleviating the tension at low multipole through Axion Monodromy
- Bayesian analysis of inflationary features in Planck and SDSS data
- Running of the Running and Entropy Perturbations During Inflation
- CMB anomalies and the effects of local features of the inflaton potential
- Primordial power spectrum features in phenomenological descriptions of inflation