Observational constraints on the energy scale of inflation

Determining the energy scale of inflation is crucial to understand the nature of inflation in the early Universe. We place observational constraints on the energy scale of the observable part of the inflaton potential by combining the 7-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data with distance measurements from the baryon acoustic oscillations in the distribution of galaxies and the Hubble constant measurement. Our analysis provides an upper limit on this energy scale, 2.3 \times 10^{16} GeV at 95% confidence level. Moreover, we forecast the sensitivity and constraints achievable by the Planck experiment by performing Monte Carlo studies on simulated data. Planck could significantly improve the constraints on the energy scale of inflation and on the shape of the inflaton potential.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, RevTeX, published versio

Two-Field Quintom Models in the w-w' Plane

The w-w' plane, defined by the equation of state parameter for the dark energy and its derivative with respect to the logarithm of the scale factor, is useful to the study of classifying the dynamical dark energy models. In this note, we examine the evolving behavior of the two-field quintom models with w crossing the w=-1 barrier in the w-w' plane. We find that these models can be divided into two categories, type A quintom in which w changes from >-1 to <-1 and type B quintom in which w changes from -1 as the universe expands.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX, Accepted for publication as a Brief Report in Physical Review