Scratches from the Past: Inflationary Archaeology through Features in the Power Spectrum of Primordial Fluctuations

TL;DR

This paper discusses how features in the primordial power spectrum, predicted by inflationary models, can serve as a probe of high-energy physics, with future large-scale structure surveys offering promising observational constraints.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of primordial power spectrum features as a key observational channel for testing inflationary models and emphasizes the potential of upcoming surveys to improve constraints.

Findings

Features in the power spectrum are predicted by many inflation models.

Future large-scale structure surveys will enhance detection sensitivity.

Current CMB constraints are limited compared to upcoming surveys.

Abstract

Inflation may provide unique insight into the physics at the highest available energy scales that cannot be replicated in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Features in the primordial power spectrum are generically predicted in a wide class of models of inflation and its alternatives, and are observationally one of the most overlooked channels for finding evidence for non-minimal inflationary models. Constraints from observations of the cosmic microwave background cover the widest range of feature frequencies, but the most sensitive constraints will come from future large-scale structure surveys that can measure the largest number of linear and quasi-linear modes.