First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Implications for Inflation

Preprint
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
  • 11 February 2003
Abstract
We confront predictions of inflationary scenarios with the WMAP data, in combination with complementary small scale CMB measurements and large scale structure data. The WMAP detection of a large angle anticorrelation in the temperature-polarization cross power spectrum is the signature of adiabatic superhorizon fluctuations at the time of decoupling. The WMAP data are described by pure adiabatic fluctuations: we place an upper limit on a correlated isocurvature component. Using WMAP constraints on the shape of the scalar power spectrum and the amplitude of the gravity waves, we explore the parameter space of inflationary models that is consistent with the data. We place limits on inflationary models; for example, a minimally coupled lambda phi^4 is disfavored at more than 3 sigma. The data suggest, at the 2 sigma level, that the spectral index runs from n_s>1 on large scales to n_s<1 on small scales. This, if true, would imply that the third derivative of the inflaton potential plays an important role in its dynamics.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: