Dependence of inflationary reconstruction upon cosmological parameters.

Abstract

The inflationary potential and its derivatives determine the spectrum of scalar and tensor metric perturbations that arise from quantum fluctuations during inflation. The CBR anisotropy offers a promising means of determining the spectra of metric perturbations and thereby a means of constraining the inflationary potential. The relation between the metric perturbations and CBR anisotropy depends upon cosmological parameters---most notably the possibility of a cosmological constant. Motivated by some observational evidence for a cosmological constant (large-scale structure, cluster-baryon fraction, measurements of the Hubble constant, and age of the Universe) we derive the reconstruction equations and consistency relation to second order in the presence of a cosmological constant. We also clarify previous notation and discuss alternative schemes for reconstruction. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.