English

A single field inflationary potential consistent with recent observations

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-02-03 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

Current observations indicate that an inverse exponential form of the inflaton potential provides an excellent description of single-field inflation. This potential fits the SPA++BK++DESI data sets well with in the 1σ1\sigma bound in the nsn_{\rm s}-rr plane, thereby offering a simple and observationally viable single field inflationary scenario. To describe post-inflationary evolution and reheating, we extend the inverse exponential potential by adding a steep exponential term that remains negligible during inflation but becomes important afterwards. The resulting full potential develops a minimum after the end of inflation, leading to oscillations of the scalar field and consequently reheating of the Universe. We find that the maximum reheating temperature attainable in this scenario is of order 1013GeV10^{13}\,\mathrm{GeV}. The inverse exponential potential therefore emerges as a compelling candidate for early-Universe inflation, combining theoretical simplicity with robust observational viability.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.01327,
  title  = {A single field inflationary potential consistent with recent observations},
  author = {Md. Wali Hossain},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.01327},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

16 pages, 1 table, 7 figures, comments welcome

R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:30:23.093Z