Minimal plateau inflation in light of ACT DR6 observations

We explore a class of minimal plateau inflationary models constrained by the latest cosmological observations from ACT DR6, Planck 2018, BICEP/Keck 2018, and DESI, collectively referred to as P-ACT-LB-BK18. These models, characterized by a non-polynomial potential, are analyzed using both inflationary and post-inflationary reheating dynamics, and the limits on the viable model parameter space are obtained. Our results show that the minimal model with matter-like post inflationary reheating phase remains consistent with current data at both 1 σ and 2 σ levels. The inflaton potential’s exponent n and reheating epoch are intertwined in that upon its increase, corresponding to the stiffer reheating equation of…