Mixed inflaton and spectator field models after Planck

Abstract

We investigate the possibility that the primordial perturbation has two sources: the inflaton and a spectator field, which is not dynamically important during inflation but which after inflation can contribute to the curvature perturbation. We derive the constraints on the model by using recent Planck results on the spectral index, tensor-to-scalar ratio and nonlinearity parameters f_NL and τ_NL for the cases with and without specifying the inflation and spectator models. If one chooses the spectator to be the curvaton with a quadratic potential, non-Gaussianities can be computed and imply restrictions on possible values of the ratio of the spectator-to-inflaton power R. We also consider a mixed curvaton and chaotic inflation model and show that even quartic chaotic inflation is still feasible in the context of mixed models even with Planck data.