Observational constraints on inflationary potentials within the quantum
  collapse framework
  The physical mechanism responsible for the emergence of primordial cosmic
seeds from a perfect isotropic and homogeneous Universe has not been fully
addressed in standard cosmic inflation. To handle this shortcoming, D. Sudarsky
et al have developed a proposal: the self-induced collapse hypothesis. In this
scheme, the objective collapse of the inflaton's wave function generates the
inhomogeneity and anisotropy at all scales. In this paper we analyze the
viability of a set of inflationary potentials in both the context of the
collapse proposal and within the standard inflationary framework. For this, we
perform a statistical analysis using recent CMB and BAO data to obtain the
prediction for the scalar spectral index $n_s$ in the context of a particular
collapse model: the Wigner scheme. The predicted $n_s$ and the tensor-to-scalar
ratio $r$ in terms of the slow roll parameters is different between the
collapse scheme and the standard inflationary model. For each potential
considered we compare the prediction of $n_s$ and $r$ with the limits
established by observational data in both pictures. The result of our analysis
shows in most cases a difference in the inflationary potentials allowed by the
observational limits in both frameworks. In particular, in the standard
approach the more concave a potential is, the more is favored by the data. On
the other hand, in the Wigner scheme, the data favors equally all type of
concave potentials, including those at the border between convex and concave
families.
