Vacuum Polarization Effects During the Reheating Epoch
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2025-12-29 v3
Abstract
Quantum effects in the era of reheating of the universe after inflation are considered. A semiclassical approach to gravity theory is applied within Starobinsky's inflationary model with backreaction. Some subtleties associated with accounting for quantum effects in the one-loop approximation are clarified. An estimate of the contribution of vacuum polarization in the stress-energy tensor of matter fields to the cosmological particle creation due to the scalaron decay is presented.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2505.03453,
title = {Vacuum Polarization Effects During the Reheating Epoch},
author = {A. B. Arbuzov and A. A. Nikitenko},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.03453},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
17 pages, 2 figures, minor misprints are corrected