Inflationary features and shifts in cosmological parameters from Planck 2015 data

We explore the relationship between features in the Planck 2015 temperature and polarization data, shifts in the cosmological parameters, and features from inflation. Residuals in the temperature data at low multipole ℓ, which are responsible for the high H₀ ≈ 70 km s^–1 Mpc^–1 and low σ₈${\text{Ω}}_m^{1/2}$ values from ℓ < 1000 in power-law ΛCDM models, are better fit to inflationary features with a 1.9σ preference for running of the running of the tilt or a stronger 99% CL local significance preference for a sharp drop in power around k = 0.004 Mpc^–1 in generalized slow roll and a lower H₀ ≈ 67km s^–1 Mpc^–1. The same in-phase acoustic residuals at ℓ >1000 that drive the global H₀ constraints and appear as a lensing anomaly also favor running parameters which allow even lower H₀, but not once lensing reconstruction is considered. Polarization spectra are intrinsically highly sensitive to these parameter shifts, and even more so in the Planck 2015 TE data due to an outlier at ℓ ≈ 165,which disfavors the best fit H₀ ΛCDM solution by more than 2σ, and high H₀ value at almost 3σ. Current polarization data also slightly enhance the significance of a sharp suppression of large-scale power but leave room for large improvements in the future with cosmic variance limited E-mode measurements.