C. T. Byrnes, M. Cortês, A. R. Liddle
Abstract
The latest results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Collaboration have moved the preferred perturbation spectral index ns closer toward one. We reanalyze constraints on the simplest version of the curvaton model, using ns and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. We show that in the massless curvaton case the model gives the same locus of ns─r predictions as the power-law model V(ϕ)∝ϕp, but with a different and more elegant physical interpretation. The model gives an excellent account of current observational data, both in the regime where the curvaton dominates the observed perturbations and with an admixture of inflaton-originated perturbations of up to about one third of the total. the addition of the newest South Pole Telescope SPT-3G D1 dataset maintains this conclusion in favor of the curvaton model. Forthcoming large-scale structure surveys, such as that of the recently launched SPHEREx probe, could discriminate between curvaton and single-field inflation models using the bispectrum.
Keywords
Cosmology; Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Physical Review D
Volume 113, Issue 063568, Page 7
2026 March
