Searching for Cosmological Collider in the Planck CMB Data II: collider templates and Modal analysis

Abstract: Signatures of massive particles during inflation are highly informative targets for cosmological experiments. With recent progress on both theoretical and observational frontiers, we have reached the point where these novel signals of primordial non-Gaussianities (PNG) can be systematically tested with increasingly precise data. In this paper, we present the results of improved CMB data analysis for cosmological collider signals using Planck CMB data. To set the stage, we first construct a set of simplified but characteristic collider templates which are accurate over a broad range of particle masses, spins and sound speeds. In order to break degeneracies with single-field PNG, we propose an orthogonalization scheme such that the collider templates are uncorrelated with the highly constrained equilateral and orthogonal shapes. On this basis, we deploy the Modal bispectrum estimator for the Planck analysis and perform a systematic scan of parameters to search for the most significant collider signal. The maximum signal-to-noise ratio is found to be $2.35σ$ for massive spin-0 exchange after taking into account the look-elsewhere effect. In addition, we cross-validate the Modal analysis with the CMB-BEST pipeline, which demonstrates the consistency of results across the benchmark examples of collider templates. Given the low signal-to-noise ratio regime we find at the current stage of PNG observations, we believe the orthogonalization procedure provides an optimized strategy for future tests of the cosmological collider with the ability to rule out single field inflation.