Natural inflation after Planck 2018

Abstract

Abstract We calculate high-precision constraints on Natural Inflation relative to current observational constraints from Planck 2018 + BICEP/Keck(BK15) Polarization + BAO on r and n S, including post-inflationary history of the universe. We find that, for conventional post-inflationary dynamics, Natural Inflation with a cosine potential is disfavored at greater than 95% confidence out by current data. If we assume protracted reheating characterized by w̅>1/3, Natural Inflation can be brought into agreement with current observational constraints. However, bringing unmodified Natural Inflation into the 68% confidence region requires values of T re below the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking. The addition of a SHOES prior on the Hubble Constant H 0 only worsens the fit.