Has ACT measured radiative corrections to the tree-level Higgs-like inflation?
Ioannis D. Gialamas, Αλέξανδρος Καράμ, Antonio Racioppi, M. Raidal
Abstract
Starobinsky inflation and nonminimally coupled (NMC) Higgs inflation have been among the most favored models of the early Universe, as their predictions for the scalar spectral index ${n}_{s}$ and tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ fall comfortably within the constraints set by Planck and BICEP/Keck. However, new results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) suggest a preference for higher values of ${n}_{s}$, introducing tension with the simplest realizations of these models. In this work, being agnostic about the nature of the inflaton, we show that incorporating one-loop corrections to a quartic NMC inflationary scenario leads to a shift in the predicted value of ${n}_{s}$, which brings NMC inflation into better agreement with ACT observations. The effect is even more significant when the model is formulated in the Palatini approach, where the modified field-space structure naturally enhances deviations from the metric case. These findings highlight the importance of quantum corrections and gravitational degrees of freedom in refining inflationary predictions in light of new data.