New inflation vs. chaotic inflation, higher degree potentials and the reconstruction program in light of WMAP3

Journal Article · Mon Feb 12 04:00:00 EST 2007 · Physical Review D

OSTI ID:934478

Ho, Chiu Man; Boyanovsky, D; de Vega, H J; Ho, C M; Sanchez, N G

The cosmic microwave background power spectra are studied for different families of single field new and chaotic inflation models in the effective field theory approach to inflation. We implement a systematic expansion in 1/N(e), where N(e)~;;50 is the number of e-folds before the end of inflation. We study the dependence of the observables (n(s), r and dn(s)/dlnk) on the degree of the potential (2n) and confront them to the WMAP3 and large scale structure data: This shows in general that fourth degree potentials (n=2) provide the best fit to the data; the window of consistency with the WMAP3 and LSS data narrows for growing n. New inflation yields a good fit to the r and n(s) data in a wide range of field and parameter space. Small field inflation yields r<0.16 while large field inflation yields r>0.16 (for N(e)=50). All members of the new inflation family predict a small but negative running -4(n+1) x 10-4<=dn(s)/dlnk<=-2 x 10-4. (The values of r, n(s), dn(s)/dlnk for arbitrary N(e) follow by a simple rescaling from the N(e)=50 values.) A reconstruction program is carried out suggesting quite generally that for n(s) consistent with the WMAP3 and LSS data and r<0.1 the symmetry breaking scale for new inflation is |phi0|~;;10MPl while the field scale at Hubble crossing is lbar phi(c) rbar~;;M(Pl). The family of chaotic models features r>=0.16 (for N(e)=50) and only a restricted subset of chaotic models are consistent with the combined WMAP3 bounds on r, n(s), dn(s)/dlnk with a narrow window in field amplitude around |phi(c)|~;;15M(Pl). We conclude that a measurement of r<0.16 (for N(e)=50) distinctly rules out a large class of chaotic scenarios and favors small field new inflationary models. As a general consequence, new inflation emerges more favored than chaotic inflation.

• Research Organization: Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: Physics Division
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 934478
• Report Number(s): LBNL-393E
• Journal Information: Physical Review D, Journal Name: Physical Review D Vol. 75
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
AMPLITUDES
RELICT RADIATION
SPECTRA
SYMMETRY BREAKING