We analyse the implications of the Planck data for cosmic inflation. The Planck nominal mission temperature anisotropy measurements, combined with the WMAP large-angle polarization, constrain the scalar spectral index to be n s = 0.9603 ± 0.0073, ruling out exact scale invariance at over 5σ. Planck establishes an upper bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio of r < 0.11 (95% CL). The Planck data thus shrink the space of allowed standard inflationary models, preferring potentials with V < 0. Exponential potential models, the simplest hybrid inflationary models, and monomial potential models of degree n ≥ 2 do not provide a good fit to the data. Planck does not find statistically significant running of the scalar spectral index, obtaining dn s /dln k = −0.0134 ± 0.0090. We verify these conclusions through a numerical analysis, which makes no slowroll approximation, and carry out a Bayesian parameter estimation and model-selection analysis for a number of inflationary models including monomial, natural, and hilltop potentials. For each model, we present the Planck constraints on the parameters of the potential and explore several possibilities for the post-inflationary entropy generation epoch, thus obtaining nontrivial data-driven constraints. We also present a direct reconstruction of the observable range of the inflaton potential. Unless a quartic term is allowed in the potential, we find results consistent with second-order slow-roll predictions. We also investigate whether the primordial power spectrum contains any features. We find that models with a parameterized oscillatory feature improve the fit by ∆χ 2 eff ≈ 10; however, Bayesian evidence does not prefer these models. We constrain several single-field inflation models with generalized Lagrangians by combining power spectrum data with Planck bounds on f NL. Planck constrains with unprecedented accuracy the amplitude and possible correlation (with the adiabatic mode) of non-decaying isocurvature fluctuations. The fractional primordial contributions of cold dark matter (CDM) isocurvature modes of the types expected in the curvaton and axion scenarios have upper bounds of 0.25% and 3.9% (95% CL), respectively. In models with arbitrarily correlated CDM or neutrino isocurvature modes, an anticorrelated isocurvature component can improve the χ 2 eff by approximately 4 as a result of slightly lowering the theoretical prediction for the < ∼ 40 multipoles relative to the higher multipoles. Nonetheless, the data are consistent with adiabatic initial conditions.
The European Space Agency's Planck satellite, dedicated to studying the early Universe and its subsequent evolution, was launched 14 May 2009 and has been scanning the microwave and submillimetre sky continuously since 12 August 2009. In March 2013, ESA and the Planck Collaboration released the initial cosmology products based on the first 15.5 months of Planck data, along with a set of scientific and technical papers and a web-based explanatory supplement. This paper gives an overview of the mission and its performance, the processing, analysis, and characteristics of the data, the scientific results, and the science data products and papers in the release. The science products include maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and diffuse extragalactic foregrounds, a catalogue of compact Galactic and extragalactic sources, and a list of sources detected through the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. The likelihood code used to assess cosmological models against the Planck data and a lensing likelihood are described. Scientific results include robust support for the standard six-parameter ΛCDM model of cosmology and improved measurements of its parameters, including a highly significant deviation from scale invariance of the primordial power spectrum. The Planck values for these parameters and others derived from them are significantly different from those previously determined. Several large-scale anomalies in the temperature distribution of the CMB, first detected by WMAP, are confirmed with higher confidence. Planck sets new limits on the number and mass of neutrinos, and has measured gravitational lensing of CMB anisotropies at greater than 25σ. Planck finds no evidence for non-Gaussianity in the CMB. Planck's results agree well with results from the measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations. Planck finds a lower Hubble constant than found in some more local measures. Some tension is also present between the amplitude of matter fluctuations (σ 8 ) derived from CMB data and that derived from Sunyaev-Zeldovich data. The Planck and WMAP power spectra are offset from each other by an average level of about 2% around the first acoustic peak. Analysis of Planck polarization data is not yet mature, therefore polarization results are not released, although the robust detection of E-mode polarization around CMB hot and cold spots is shown graphically.
The Planck nominal mission cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps yield unprecedented constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (NG). Using three optimal bispectrum estimators, separable template-fitting (KSW), binned, and modal, we obtain consistent values for the primordial local, equilateral, and orthogonal bispectrum amplitudes, quoting as our final result f local NL = 2.7 ± 5.8, f equil NL = −42 ± 75, and f ortho NL = −25 ± 39 (68% CL statistical). Non-Gaussianity is detected in the data; using skew-C statistics we find a nonzero bispectrum from residual point sources, and the integrated-Sachs-Wolfe-lensing bispectrum at a level expected in the ΛCDM scenario. The results are based on comprehensive crossvalidation of these estimators on Gaussian and non-Gaussian simulations, are stable across component separation techniques, pass an extensive suite of tests, and are confirmed by skew-C , wavelet bispectrum and Minkowski functional estimators. Beyond estimates of individual shape amplitudes, we present model-independent, three-dimensional reconstructions of the Planck CMB bispectrum and thus derive constraints on early-Universe scenarios that generate primordial NG, including general single-field models of inflation, excited initial states (non-Bunch-Davies vacua), and directionally-dependent vector models. We provide an initial survey of scale-dependent feature and resonance models. These results bound both general single-field and multi-field model parameter ranges, such as the speed of sound, c s ≥ 0.02 (95% CL), in an effective field theory parametrization, and the curvaton decay fraction r D ≥ 0.15 (95% CL). The Planck data significantly limit the viable parameter space of the ekpyrotic/cyclic scenarios. The amplitude of the four-point function in the local model τ NL < 2800 (95% CL). Taken together, these constraints represent the highest precision tests to date of physical mechanisms for the origin of cosmic structure.
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