Status of light inflaton: from inflation to laboratory

Niloy Mondal; Shashwat Sharma; Mathew Thomas Arun; Basabendu Barman

Status of light inflaton: from inflation to laboratory

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2026-07-25 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Theory

Authors: Niloy Mondal , Shashwat Sharma , Mathew Thomas Arun , Basabendu Barman

Abstract

We investigate the viability of the light inflaton scenario in light of the latest inflationary constraints from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), together with bounds from collider and intensity-frontier experiments searching for a feebly coupled light scalar with a sub-GeV mass. Assuming a quartic inflaton potential, we identify the region of parameter space consistent with the ACT observations and derive constraints on the inflaton mass and inflaton-Higgs mixing using results from NA62, KOTO, BaBar, Belle, LHCb, MATHUSLA, FASER2, SHiP, and neutral meson oscillations. We also explore the prospects for dark matter production during reheating within this framework, while remaining consistent with the inflationary observables.

Keywords

light inflaton inflation ACT collider bounds intensity frontier dark matter reheating

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.23200,
  title  = {Status of light inflaton: from inflation to laboratory},
  author = {Niloy Mondal and Shashwat Sharma and Mathew Thomas Arun and Basabendu Barman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.23200},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

27 pages, 5 figures, and 2 tables