English

Post-inflationary thermalization with hadronization scenario

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2009-11-07 v2 Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We study thermalization of the early Universe when the inflaton can decay into the Standard Model (SM) quarks and gluons, using QCD arguments. We describe the possible formation of the thermal plasma of soft gluons and quarks well before the completion of reheating. Relevant interaction rates of leading order processes and the corresponding thermalization time scale is presented. We discuss hadronization while thermalizing the decay products of the inflaton, when the reheat temperature of the Universe is below the QCD phase transition but above the temperature of the Big Bang nucleosynthesis.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0212265,
  title  = {Post-inflationary thermalization with hadronization scenario},
  author = {Prashanth Jaikumar and Anupam Mazumdar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0212265},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

shortened version (8 pages), modified discussion of hadronization, conclusion unchanged, references added

R2 v1 2026-07-22T13:45:34.705Z