Related papers: Relaxation from particle production
Many models of supersymmetry breaking involve particles with weak scale mass and Planck mass suppressed couplings. Coherent production of such particles in the early universe destroys the successful predictions of nucleosynthesis. We show…
It has recently been suggested that Planck scale physics may effect the evolution of cosmological fluctuations in the early stages of cosmological inflation in a non-trivial way, leading to an excited state for modes whose wavelength is…
Reheating after inflation can occur through inflaton decay or efficient parametric resonant production of particles from the oscillation of the inflaton. If the particles produced interact with scalars that were light during inflation, then…
By using the first-principles approach, we derive a system of three quantum kinetic equations governing the production and evolution of charged scalar particles by an electric field in an expanding universe. Analyzing the ultraviolet…
At the end of the inflationary stage of the early universe, profuse particle production leads to the reheating of the universe. Such explosive particle production is due to parametric amplification of quantum fluctuations for the unbroken…
The issue of relaxation has been addressed in terms of ergodic theory in the past. However, the application of that theory to models of physical interest is problematic, especially when dealing with relaxation to nonequilibrium steady…
We investigate the relaxation and decay of a particle during inflation by implementing the dynamical renormalization group. This investigation allows us to give a meaningful definition for the decay rate in an expanding universe. As a…
The relaxation to equilibrium of lattice systems with long-range interactions is investigated. The timescales involved depend polynomially on the system size, potentially leading to diverging equilibration times. A kinetic equation for…
The recent measurement of a cutoff k_min in the fluctuation power spectrum P(k) of the cosmic microwave background may vitiate the possibility that slow-roll inflation can simultaneously solve the horizon problem and account for the…
Reheating is an important part of inflationary cosmology. It describes the production of Standard Matter particles after the phase of accelerated expansion. We give a review of the reheating process, focusing on an in-depth discussion of…
The optimal power flow (OPF) problem minimizes power system operating cost subject to both engineering and network constraints. With the potential to find global solutions, significant research interest has focused on convex relaxations of…
We study the problem of initial conditions for slow-roll inflation along a plateau-like scalar potential within the framework of fluctuation-dissipation dynamics. We consider, in particular, that inflation was preceded by a…
We argue that strong dynamics at the Planck scale can solve the cosmological moduli problem. We discuss its implications for inflation models, and find that a certain type of multi-field inflation model is required for this mechanism to…
A novel higher order theory of relaxation of heat and viscosity is proposed based on corrections to the traditional treatment of the relativistic energy density. In the framework of generalized Bjorken scaling solution to accelerating…
We show how backreaction of the inflaton potential energy on heavy scalar fields can flatten the inflationary potential, as the heavy fields adjust to their most energetically favorable configuration. This mechanism operates in previous…
Tachyonic preheating is realized when the inflaton repeatedly returns to a convex region of the potential during the post-inflationary oscillating phase. This will induce a strong tachyonic instability and lead to a rapid fragmentation of…
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…
In traditional models only an order one fraction of energy is transferred from the inflaton to radiation through nonperturbative resonance production in preheating immediately after inflation, due to backreaction effects. We propose a…
Dynamical scanning of the Higgs mass by an axion-like particle during inflation may provide a cosmological component to explaining part of the hierarchy problem. We propose a novel interplay of this cosmological relaxation mechanism with…
We study the dynamics of the solid to liquid transition for a model material made of elastic particles immersed in a viscous fluid. The interaction between particle surfaces includes their viscous lubrication, a sharp repulsion when they…