Discordances in Cosmology and the Violation of Slow-Roll Inflationary Dynamics
Akhil Antony, F. Finelli⋆, Dhiraj Kumar Hazra, Arman Shafieloo
Abstract
We identify examples of single field inflationary trajectories beyond the slow-roll regime that improve the fit to Planck 2018 data compared to a baseline Λ cold dark matter model with power law form of primordial spectrum and at the same time alleviate existing tensions between different datasets in the estimate of cosmological parameters such as H_{0} and S_{8}. A damped oscillation in the first Hubble flow function-or equivalently a feature in the potential-and the corresponding localized oscillations in the primordial power spectrum partially mimic the improvement in the fit of Planck data due to A_{L} or Ω_{K}. Compared to the baseline model, this model can lead simultaneously to a larger value of H_{0} and a smaller value of S_{8}, a trend that can be enhanced when the most recent SH0ES measurement for H_{0} is combined with Planck and BICEP-Keck 2018 data. Large scale structure data and more precise cosmic microwave background polarization measurements will further provide critical tests of this intermediate fast-roll phase.