Multiple inflation and the WMAP 'glitches' II. Data analysis and cosmological parameter extraction

TL;DR

This paper analyzes WMAP data for oscillatory features in primordial perturbations, exploring their implications for cosmological models, including the possibility of a universe without dark energy, using advanced data fitting techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of primordial spectrum features from WMAP data and examines alternative cosmological models fitting these features without dark energy.

Findings

Oscillatory features in primordial spectrum are consistent with supergravity-based multiple inflation.

A bump in the spectrum allows fitting data with an Einstein-de Sitter universe without dark energy.

A CHDM model with hot dark matter can fit galaxy clustering data but struggles with baryon acoustic peak.

Abstract

Detailed analyses of the WMAP data indicate possible oscillatory features in the primordial curvature perturbation, which moreover appears to be suppressed beyond the present Hubble radius. Such deviations from the usual inflationary expectation of an approximately Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum are expected in the supergravity-based 'multiple inflation' model wherein phase transitions during inflation induce sudden changes in the mass of the inflaton, thus interrupting its slow-roll. In a previous paper we calculated the resulting curvature perturbation and showed how the oscillations arise. Here we perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo fitting exercise using the 3-year WMAP data to determine how the fitted cosmological parameters vary when such a primordial spectrum is used as an input, rather than the usually assumed power-law spectrum. The 'concordance' LCDM model is still a good fit when there is just a 'step' in the spectrum. However if there is a 'bump' in the spectrum (due e.g. to two phase transitions in rapid succession), the precision CMB data can be well-fitted by a flat Einstein-de Sitter cosmology without dark energy. This however requires the Hubble constant to be h ~ 0.44 which is lower than the locally measured value. To fit the SDSS data on the power spectrum of galaxy clustering requires a ~10% component of hot dark matter, as would naturally be provided by 3 species of neutrinos of mass ~0.5 eV. This CHDM model cannot however fit the position of the baryon acoustic peak in the LRG redshift two-point correlation function. It may be possible to overcome these difficulties in an inhomogeneous Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi cosmological model with a local void, which can potentially also account for the SN Ia Hubble diagram without invoking cosmic acceleration.