Monte Carlo Markov chains analysis of WMAP3 and SDSS data points to broken symmetry inflaton potentials and provides a lower bound on the tensor to scalar ratio

We perform a Monte Carlo Markov chains (MCMC) analysis of the available cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large scale structure (LSS) data (including the three years WMAP data) with single field slow-roll new inflation and chaotic inflation models. We do this within our approach to inflation as an effective field theory in the Ginsburg-Landau spirit with fourth degree trinomial potentials in the inflaton field phi. We derive explicit formulae and study in detail the spectral index n(s) of the adiabatic fluctuations, the ratio r of tensor to scalar fluctuations, and the running index dn(s)/dlnk. We use these analytic formulas as hard constraints on n(s) and r in the MCMC analysis. Our analysis differs in this crucial aspect from previous MCMC studies in the literature involving the WMAP3 data. Our results are as follows: (i) The data strongly indicate the breaking (whether spontaneous or explicit) of the phi ->-phi symmetry of the inflaton potentials both for new and for chaotic inflation. (ii) Trinomial new inflation naturally satisfies this requirement and provides an excellent fit to the data. (iii) Trinomial chaotic inflation produces the best fit in a very narrow corner of the parameter space. (iv) The chaotic symmetric trinomial potential is almost certainly ruled out (at 95% C.L.). In trinomial chaotic inflation the MCMC runs go towards a potential in the boundary of the parameter space and which resembles a spontaneously symmetry broken potential of new inflation. (v) The above results and further physical analysis here lead us to conclude that new inflation gives the best description of the data. (vi) We find a lower bound for r within trinomial new inflation potentials: r > 0.016(95%CL) and r > 0.049(68%CL). (vii) The preferred new inflation trinomial potential is a double well, even function of the field with a moderate quartic coupling yielding as most probable values: n(s)similar or equal to 0.958, r similar or equal to 0.055. This value for r is within reach of forthcoming CMB observations.