Related papers: Cosmological Moduli Problem from Thermal Effects
Moduli, modulini and the gravitino have gravitational-strength interactions, and thermal collisions after reheating create all of them with roughly the same abundance. With their mass of order $100\GeV$, corresponding to gravity-mediated…
Scalar fields in the minimal supersymmetric standard model may have large field values during inflation. Because of approximate global symmetry, it is plausible that the phase directions of them are nearly massless during inflation and…
Axions seem ubiquitous in string theories and some of them may be produced non-thermally by heavy scalar decays, contributing to dark radiation. We study various cosmological effects of photons produced from the axionic dark radiation…
We study axion-dilaton cosmologies derived from the low-energy string effective action. We present the classical homogeneous Friedmann-Robertson-Walker solutions and derive the semi-classical perturbation spectra in the dilaton, axion and…
Modular invariance is a striking symmetry in string theory, which may keep stringy corrections under control. In this paper, we investigate a phenomenological consequence of the modular invariance, assuming that this symmetry is preserved…
We present analytic solutions to the spatially homogeneous axion field equation, using a model potential which strongly resembles the $(1-\cos \theta)$ standard anharmonic potential. We find that the anharmonicity amplifies early universe…
We discuss effects of cosmological moduli fields on the cosmic microwave background (CMB). If a modulus field \phi once dominates the universe, the CMB we observe today is from the decay of \phi and its anisotropy is affected by the…
We give a generic argument that string theory provides a natural setting for warm inflationary cosmology. We then explore a specific model with an inflaton modulus field coupled to fields that provide the continuous dissipation needed for…
We show how successful supersymmetric hybrid inflation is realized in realistic models where the resolution of the minimal supersymmetric standard model mu problem is intimately linked with axion physics. The scalar fields that accompany…
The relic abundance of Dark Matter (DM) produced via thermal freeze-in is sensitive to the thermal history during and after cosmic reheating. In minimal models, this opens up the possibility to make predictions for collider observables by…
We present a numerical integration of the cosmological scalar perturbation equations in warm inflation. The initial conditions are provided by a discussion of the thermal fluctuations of an inflaton field and thermal radiation using a…
We study the effect of a finite topology on the temperature correlations of the cosmic microwave background in a flat universe. Analytic expressions for the angular power spectrum are given for all possible finite flat models. We examine…
We investigate the cosmological moduli problem by studying a modulus decay in detail and find that the branching ratio of the gravitino production is generically of O(0.01-1), which causes another cosmological disaster. Consequently, the…
Cosmological models arising from a generalized compactification of Einstein gravity are derived. It is shown that a redefinition of the moduli fields reduces the system to a set of massless fields and a single field with a single…
The hot plasma above the electroweak scale contains (hyper) charged scalar particles which are coupled to Abelian gauge fields. Scalars may interact with gravity in a non-conformally invariant way and thus their fluctuations can be…
Various authors have noted that in particular models, the upper bound on the axion decay constant may not hold. We point out that within supersymmetry, this is a generic issue. For large decay constants, the cosmological problems associated…
We consider the long time behavior of solutions to scalar field models appearing in the theory of cosmological inflation (oscillons) and cold dark matter, in presence or absence of the cosmological constant. These models are not included in…
Incorporating the QCD axion and simultaneously satisfying current constraints on the dark matter density and isocurvature fluctuations requires non-minimal fine-tuning of inflationary parameters or the axion misalignment angle (or both) for…
We calculate the relaxation rate of a scalar field in a plasma of other scalars and fermions with gauge interactions using thermal quantum field theory. It yields the rate of cosmic reheating and thereby determines the temperature of the…
We obtain cosmological constraints on models of inflation which exhibit rapid roll solutions. Rapid roll attractors exist for potentials with large mass terms and are thus of interest for inflationary model building within string theory. We…