Starobinsky Inflation and the Latest CMB Data: A Subtle Tension?

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Auteurs principaux: Bezerra-Sobrinho, J., Medeiros, L. G.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Bezerra-Sobrinho, J.
Medeiros, L. G.
author_facet Bezerra-Sobrinho, J.
Medeiros, L. G.
contents We analyze the Starobinsky inflation model and the impact of curvature corrections, particularly a cubic $R^3$ term, to assess their behavior in light of the latest observational results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). With the recent sixth data release (DR6), the scalar spectral index was measured to be $n_s=0.9743 \pm 0.0034$, which appears to exclude the pure Starobinsky model at approximately the $2σ$ level. In this paper, we implement the Starobinsky inflationary potential directly into the CLASS code, without relying on the slow-roll approximation, and we constrain the number of e-folds of inflation $N_k$ using a theoretically motivated range derived from reheating considerations and standard couplings between matter fields and gravity. We show that it is still possible to identify a significant region of parameter space where the Starobinsky model remains highly consistent with the latest observational data. While the pure Starobinsky model remains a compelling candidate for cosmic inflation, we explore how including a cubic $R^3$ term can shift its predictions to better align with the Planck and ACT measurements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_06640
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Starobinsky Inflation and the Latest CMB Data: A Subtle Tension?
Bezerra-Sobrinho, J.
Medeiros, L. G.
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
We analyze the Starobinsky inflation model and the impact of curvature corrections, particularly a cubic $R^3$ term, to assess their behavior in light of the latest observational results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). With the recent sixth data release (DR6), the scalar spectral index was measured to be $n_s=0.9743 \pm 0.0034$, which appears to exclude the pure Starobinsky model at approximately the $2σ$ level. In this paper, we implement the Starobinsky inflationary potential directly into the CLASS code, without relying on the slow-roll approximation, and we constrain the number of e-folds of inflation $N_k$ using a theoretically motivated range derived from reheating considerations and standard couplings between matter fields and gravity. We show that it is still possible to identify a significant region of parameter space where the Starobinsky model remains highly consistent with the latest observational data. While the pure Starobinsky model remains a compelling candidate for cosmic inflation, we explore how including a cubic $R^3$ term can shift its predictions to better align with the Planck and ACT measurements.
title Starobinsky Inflation and the Latest CMB Data: A Subtle Tension?
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.06640