Constraints on non-canonical chaotic inflation from ACT DR6 and BICEP/Keck data
In this study, we precisely evaluated the feasibility of the chaotic inflation model within a non-canonical kinetic framework. By applying the slow-roll approximation and imposing constraints on the equilateral non-Gaussianity f N L e q u i l , we imposed constraints on the feasible range of the potential index n . We established physical bounds for the non-canonical parameter α . To obtain precise parameter constraints, we solved the primordial perturbation equations numerically and conducted a rigorous MCMC analysis by using a comprehensive joint P-ACT-LB-BK18 dataset. For these potentials n = 1 / 3 , 2/3, and 1, our results respectively tightly limit α to the levels of 8 . 8 − 2.8 + 1.6 , 11 . 7 − 2.6 + 1.7 , and 16 . 4 − 7.0 + 3.7 , within the corresponding 1 σ confidence intervals. Meanwhile, the required number of e -foldings naturally converges to N ≃ 54, without the need for fine-tuning. These findings confirm that non-standard mechanisms can resurrect excluded chaotic inflation models within the 1 σ allowed regions of high-precision cosmological data.
Authors
- Chen-Hao Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9562-8586)
- Ya-Peng Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3394-2614)
- Wei Yang
Institutions
- Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (CN)
- Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physics Letters B
- Published
- 2026-05-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140532
- Primary Topic
- Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China