Tuesday, March 12, 2013

1303.2616 (Hiranya Peiris et al.)

Constraining Monodromy Inflation    [PDF]

Hiranya Peiris, Richard Easther, Raphael Flauger
We use cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from the 9-year WMAP release to derive constraints on monodromy inflation, which is characterized by a linear inflaton potential with a periodic modulation. We identify two possible periodic modulations that significantly improve the fit, but it is unclear whether this improvement is associated with a "signal" or with the scatter in the measured angular power spectrum. The unmodulated potential is mildly favored by standard model selection criteria. A modulated inflationary potential can generate substantial primordial non-Gaussianity, of a specific and characteristic form. For the best-fit parameters to the WMAP angular power spectrum, the corresponding non-Gaussianity might be detectable in upcoming CMB data, allowing nontrivial consistency checks on the predictions of a modulated inflationary potential.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.2616

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