Implications of Planck2015 for inflationary, ekpyrotic and anamorphic
  bouncing cosmologies
  The results from Planck2015, when combined with earlier observations from
WMAP, ACT, SPT and other experiments, were the first observations to disfavor
the "classic" inflationary paradigm. To satisfy the observational constraints,
inflationary theorists have been forced to consider plateau-like inflaton
potentials that introduce more parameters and more fine-tuning, problematic
initial conditions, multiverse-unpredictability issues, and a new 'unlikeliness
problem.' Some propose turning instead to a "postmodern" inflationary paradigm
in which the cosmological properties in our observable universe are only
locally valid and set randomly, with completely different properties (and
perhaps even different physical laws) existing in most regions outside our
horizon. By contrast, the new results are consistent with the simplest versions
of ekpyrotic cyclic models in which the universe is smoothed and flattened
during a period of slow contraction followed by a bounce, and another promising
bouncing theory, anamorphic cosmology, has been proposed that can produce
distinctive predictions.
