English

Mutated hilltop inflation in light of Planck/ACT observations

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-11-11 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

Here, a single field inflationary model driven by a mutated hilltop potential, a subclass of the hilltop models of inflation, is investigated. To constrain the parameter space, we employ the latest rnsr-n_{\rm s} constraints from Planck 2018, BICEP/Keck 2018, and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data, alongside reheating parameters NreN_{\rm{re}}, TreT_{\rm{re}}, and ωre\omega_{\rm{re}}, and the model independent bound on the radiation dominated (RD) era NrdN_{\rm{rd}}. Furthermore, the relic gravitational wave (GW) spectrum within the sensitivity domains of future GW detectors are analyzed. By combining CMB, reheating, RD era, and GW constraints, we find for the Planck+BK18 data that the inflationary duration is confined to 46N5646 \leq N \leq 56 (95\% CL) and 48.1N5648.1 \leq N \leq 56 (68\% CL). Moreover, the model parameter α\alpha is confined to 0.161α0.8900.161 \leq \alpha \leq 0.890 (95\% CL) and 0.217α0.8150.217 \leq \alpha \leq 0.815 (68\% CL). Inclusion of the ACT data further tighten the constraints to 54N5654 \leq N \leq 56 (95\% CL) and 0.29α0.620.29 \leq \alpha \leq 0.62 (95\% CL), thereby enhancing the precision and robustness of the model predictions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.12203,
  title  = {Mutated hilltop inflation in light of Planck/ACT observations},
  author = {Iraj Safaei and Soma Heydari and Milad Solbi and Kayoomars Karami},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.12203},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

29 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables