2005/05/31 by Kenji Kadota, Scott Dodelson, Wayne Hu +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Amplitude #Computer science #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Inflation (cosmology) #Inflaton #Observable #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Set (abstract data type) #Slow roll #Statistical physics #Theoretical physics #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.72.023510
published as Phys.Rev.D72:023510,2005
openalex publication_date 2005/07/12 · arxiv created 2005/07/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Through a principal component analysis, we study how accurately cosmic microwave background observables can constrain inflaton potentials in a model-independent manner. We apply the general slow-roll approximation in our analysis where we allow, in contrast to the standard slow-roll approximation, the possibility of variations in V^\ensuremath'\ensuremath'(\ensuremathφ) and take into account the fact that horizon crossing is not an instantaneous event. Our analysis provides a set of modes to be used in fitting observables. We find that of order five of these modes will be constrained by future observations, so a fully general data analysis package could use the amplitudes of just a handful of modes as free parameters and retain all relevant information in the data.