English

Bayesian inflationary reconstructions from Planck 2018 data

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2019-11-20 v2 Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We present three non-parametric Bayesian primordial reconstructions using Planck 2018 polarization data: linear spline primordial power spectrum reconstructions, cubic spline inflationary potential reconstructions and sharp-featured primordial power spectrum reconstructions. All three methods conditionally show hints of an oscillatory feature in the primordial power spectrum in the multipole range 20\ell\sim20 to 50\ell\sim50, which is to some extent preserved upon marginalization. We find no evidence for deviations from a pure power law across a broad observable window (50200050\lesssim\ell\lesssim2000), but find that parameterizations are preferred which are able to account for lack of resolution at large angular scales due to cosmic variance, and at small angular scales due to Planck instrument noise. Furthermore, the late-time cosmological parameters are unperturbed by these extensions to the primordial power spectrum. This work is intended to provide a background and give more details of the Bayesian primordial reconstruction work found in the Planck 2018 papers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.00906,
  title  = {Bayesian inflationary reconstructions from Planck 2018 data},
  author = {Will J. Handley and Anthony N. Lasenby and Hiranya V. Peiris and Michael P. Hobson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.00906},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

25 Pages, 15 Figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:38:21.476Z