English

Reheating constraints to modulus mass for single field inflationary models

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2020-11-16 v3

Abstract

We consider string and supergravity motivated scenarios in which moduli fields dominate the energy density of the Universe in a post-inflationary epoch. For the case of a single light modulus it has been shown that considering the evolution of a specific scale from the time of its Hubble crossing during inflation to the present time, a relation can be obtained among the lightest modulus mass, the reheating parameters (TrehT_{\text{reh}}, wˉreh\bar{w}_{\text{reh}} and NrehN_{\text{reh}}) and the inflationary observables. By paying closer attention to the role of the wˉreh\bar{w}_{\text{reh}}, we obtain more stringent constraints on the value of the modulus mass and the reheating parameters using the CMB data. Next, the analysis is extended to include features in the inflaton potential as a source of CMB low multipole anomalies, which further constrains the mass of the modulus to be substantially higher than without such a constraint. By both considerations and for several inflation models considered, we find a constraint on the mass of the lightest modulus particle, mχm_{\chi}, generically 1015\gtrsim10^{15}GeV, with possible low values 1012\sim10^{12}GeV. While a simplification of the reheating phase is assumed, the bounds are reliably suggestive, and the study may be taken as a demonstration that substantial knowledge about reheating phase buried deep in the early epochs of the Universe is accessible through the use of CMB observables today.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.04203,
  title  = {Reheating constraints to modulus mass for single field inflationary models},
  author = {Rajesh Goswami and Urjit A. Yajnik},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.04203},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

26 pages, 5 figures. Figures improved. Added comment on variation in mass limits from CMB data. Version finalised for Nuclear Physics B. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1806.10340

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:45:18.949Z