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Astrophysics > Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Title: Is natural inflation in agreement with CMB data?
(Submitted on 19 Dec 2023 (v1), last revised 21 Apr 2024 (this version, v3))
Abstract: Natural inflation is a well-motivated model for the early universe in which an inflaton potential of the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone form, $V(\phi) = \Lambda^4[1 + \cos{(\phi/f)}]$, can naturally drive a cosmic accelerated epoch. This paper investigates the observational viability of the minimally and non-minimally coupled natural inflation scenarios in light of current Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations. We find that a small and negative coupling of the field with gravity can alleviate the well-known observational discrepancies of the minimally coupled model. We perform a Monte Carlo Markov Chain analysis of the Planck 2018 CMB and BICEP/Keck Array B-mode polarization data to estimate how strong the coupling $\xi$ should be to achieve concordance with data. We also briefly discuss the impact of these results on the physical interpretation of the natural inflation scenario.
Submission history
From: Felipe Bruno Medeiros Dos Santos [view email][v1] Tue, 19 Dec 2023 16:10:24 GMT (2233kb,D)
[v2] Thu, 21 Dec 2023 18:21:59 GMT (2234kb,D)
[v3] Sun, 21 Apr 2024 23:03:34 GMT (2795kb,D)
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