Related papers: Thermalization Process after Inflation and Effecti…
The theory of reheating of the Universe after inflation is developed. The transition from inflation to the hot Universe turns out to be strongly model-dependent and typically consists of several stages. Immediately after inflation the field…
When did the universe thermalize? In this talk I review the status of this issue and its importance in establishing the expected properties of dark matter, the growth of large-scale structure, and the viability of inflation models when…
We study the problem of scalar particle production after inflation by a rapidly oscillating inflaton field. We use the framework of the chaotic inflation scenario with quartic and quadratic inflaton potentials. Particular attention is paid…
During (re)heating of the universe after inflation, the relativistic decay products of the inflaton field $\phi$ must lose energy and additional particles must be produced to attain a thermalised state at a temperature $T_{\reh}$. We…
We consider the conditions for the decay products of perturbative inflaton decay to thermalize. The importance of considering the full spectrum of inflaton decay products in the thermalization process is emphasized. It is shown that the…
Reheating is a process where the energy density of a dominant component of the universe other than radiation, such as a matter component, is transferred into radiation. It is usually assumed that the temperature of the universe decreases…
If reheating of the Universe takes place via Planck-suppressed decay, it seems that the thermalization of produced particles might be delayed, since they have large energy/small number densities and number violating large angle scatterings…
We investigate the matter creation processes during the reheating period at the end of inflation in the early Universe, by using the irreversible thermodynamic of open systems. The matter content of the Universe is assumed to consist of the…
We present a detailed examination of thermalization after inflation for perturbative inflaton decay. Different interactions among particles in the plasma of inflaton decay products are considered and it will be shown that 2 -> 2 scatterings…
We study the damping of an oscillating scalar field in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime by perturbative processes, taking into account the finite density effects that interactions with the plasma of decay products have on the damping…
Current observations indicate that an inverse exponential form of the inflaton potential provides an excellent description of single-field inflation. This potential fits the SPA$+$BK$+$DESI data sets well with in the $1\sigma$ bound in the…
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…
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…
Taking axion inflation as an example, we estimate the maximal temperature ($T_{\rm max}^{ }$) that can be reached in the post-inflationary universe, as a function of the confinement scale of a non-Abelian dark sector ($\Lambda_{\rm IR}^{…
We study, analytically and with lattice simulations, the decay of coherent field oscillations and the subsequent thermalization of the resulting stochastic classical wave-field. The problem of reheating of the Universe after inflation…
We consider the case of a scalar field, the inflaton, coupled to both lighter scalars and fermions, and the study the relaxation of the inflaton via particle production in both the linear and non-linear regimes. This has an immediate…
Thermal field theory is applied to particle production rates in inflationary models, leading to new results for catalysed, or two-stage decay, where massive fields act as decay channels for the production of light fields. A numerical…
We consider one-loop thermal effects on the decay of a scalar field zero mode initially dominating the energy density of the universe. We assume fermionic decay channels and take into account the effects due to both particle and hole…
After inflation the Universe presumably undergoes a phase of reheating which in effect starts the thermal big bang cosmology. However, so far we have very little direct experimental or observational evidence of this important phase of the…
In the standard picture, the inflationary universe is in a supercooled state which ends with a short time, large scale reheating period, after which the universe goes into a radiation dominated stage. An alternative is proposed here in…