Monte Carlo reconstruction of the inflationary potential

We introduce a new method for applying an inflationary prior to a cosmological dataset that includes relations between observables at arbitrary order in the slow roll expansion. The process is based on the inflationary flow equations, and the slow roll parameters appear explicitly in the cosmological parameter set. We contrast our method to other ways of imposing an inflationary prior on a cosmological dataset, and argue that this method is ideal for use with heterogeneous da...

We review the constraints that the recently released Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Planck data put on inflation and we argue that single field slow-roll inflationary scenarios (with minimal kinetic term) are favored. Then, within this class of models, by means of Bayesian inference, we show how one can rank the scenarios according to their performances, leading to the identification of ``the best models of inflation''.

We reconstruct scalar field theories to realize inflation compatible with the BICEP2 result as well as the Planck. In particular, we examine the chaotic inflation model, natural (or axion) inflation model, and an inflationary model with a hyperbolic inflaton potential. We perform an explicit approach to find out a scalar field model of inflation in which any observations can be explained in principle.

We investigate perturbations in power-law monomial potentials within inflationary models driven by a single scalar field. By introducing a second term to the original potential, we study how this perturbation influences the slow-roll parameters and analyze the consequent changes in the spectral index, $n_s$, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, treating the additional term as a correction to the monomial case. Comparing our numerical results with current cosmological data fro...

We compute the Bayesian evidence and complexity of 193 slow-roll single-field models of inflation using the Planck 2013 Cosmic Microwave Background data, with the aim of establishing which models are favoured from a Bayesian perspective. Our calculations employ a new numerical pipeline interfacing an inflationary effective likelihood with the slow-roll library ASPIC and the nested sampling algorithm MULTINEST. The models considered represent a complete and systematic scan of ...

An algorithm is used to generate new solutions of the scalar field equations in homogeneous and isotropic universes. Solutions can be found for pure scalar fields with various potentials in the absence and presence of spatial curvature and other perfect fluids. A series of generalisations of the Chaplygin gas and bulk viscous cosmological solutions for inflationary universes are found. Furthermore other closed-form solutions which provide inflationary universes are presented....

Future astrophysical datasets promise to strengthen constraints on models of inflation, and extracting these constraints requires methods and tools commensurate with the quality of the data. In this paper we describe ModeCode, a new, publicly available code that computes the primordial scalar and tensor power spectra for single field inflationary models. ModeCode solves the inflationary mode equations numerically, avoiding the slow roll approximation. It is interfaced with CA...

This paper discusses a simple procedure to reconstruct f (R)-gravity models from exact cosmological solutions of the Einstein field equations with a noninteracting classical scalar field-and-radiation background. From the kind of inflationary scenario we want, we show how the potential functions can be obtained. We then show how an f (R) gravitational Lagrangian density that mimics the same cosmological expansion as the scalar field-driven inflation of General Relativity can ...

The evolution of inflationary fluctuations can be recast as an inverse scattering problem. In this context, we employ the Gel'fand-Levitan method from inverse-scattering theory to reconstruct the evolution of both the inflaton field freeze-out horizon and the Hubble parameter during inflation. We demonstrate this reconstruction procedure numerically for a scenario of slow-roll inflation, as well as for a scenario which temporarily departs from slow-roll. The field freeze-out ...

The first year WMAP measurement of the CMB temperature anisotropy is intriguingly consistent with a larger running of the inflationary scalar spectral index than would be expected for single-field inflation. We revisit the issue of a large running spectral index, first by reexamining the evidence from the data, and then by reconstructing the inflationary potential, using an improved method based upon the Hamilton-Jacobi formulation. We note that a spectrum which runs only ove...