Related papers: Symmetric and Asymmetric Reheating
We analyze reheating scenarios where a hidden sector is populated during reheating along with the sector containing the Standard Model. We numerically solve the Boltzmann equations describing perturbative reheating of the two sectors,…
We demonstrate how a dark sector can provide a crucial link between a vacuum-dominated early universe and the later radiation-dominated epoch. As an example, we consider a feeble axion-like coupling of dark non-Abelian gauge fields with a…
We point out some of the outstanding challenges for embedding inflationary cosmology within string theory studying the process of reheating for models where the inflaton is a closed string mode parameterising the size of an internal cycle…
In the presence of self-interactions, the post-inflationary evolution of the inflaton field is driven into the non-linear regime by the resonant growth of its fluctuations. The once spatially homogeneous coherent inflaton is converted into…
We consider a scenario where the inflaton decays to a hidden sector thermally decoupled from the visible Standard Model sector. A tiny portal coupling between the hidden and the visible sectors later heats the visible sector so that the…
Motivated by Refs \cite{am1,am2}, we analyze how the inflaton decay reheats the Universe within supersymmetry. In a non-supersymmetric case the inflaton usually decays via preheating unless its couplings to other fields are very small.…
In supersymmetric extensions of the particle physics Standard Model, gauge invariant combinations of squarks and sleptons (flat directions) can acquire large expectation values during a period of cosmological inflation. If the inflaton…
Protecting the inflationary potential from quantum corrections typically requires symmetries that constrain the form of couplings of the inflaton to other sectors. We will explore how these restrictions affect reheating in models with UV…
Asymmetric reheating is a generic requirement for models of dark sectors with light species, but its implementation is usually in tension with unique phenomenologies otherwise possible in compelling theories containing dark copies of the…
In a broad class of theories, the relic abundance of dark matter is determined by interactions internal to a thermalized dark sector, with no direct involvement of the Standard Model (SM). We point out that these theories raise an immediate…
We investigate the feasibility of models of inflation with a large Gauss-Bonnet coupling at late times, which have been shown to modify and prevent the end of inflation. Despite the potential of Gauss-Bonnet models in predicting favourable…
Reheating is a transition era after the end of inflation, during which the inflaton is converted into the particles that populate the Universe at later times. No direct cosmological observables are normally traceable to this period of…
We study models in which reheating happens only through non-perturbative processes. The energy transferred can be exponentially suppressed unless the inflaton is coupled to a particle with a parametrically small mass. Additionally, in some…
The prediction of a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of curvature and tensor fluctuations is among the main features of cosmic inflation. The current measurements of the primordial fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB)…
We analyze in detail the perturbative decay of the inflaton oscillating about a generic form of its potential $V(\phi) = \phi^k$, taking into account the effects of non-instantaneous reheating. We show that evolution of the temperature as a…
The existence of a shadow world (or mirror universe) with matter and forces identical to that of the visible world but interacting with the latter only via gravity can be motivated by superstring theories as well as by recent attempts to…
By using a No-Scale Supergravity model, which was proved well to explain WMAP observations appropriately, a mechanism of preheating just after the end of inflation is investigated. By using the canonically normalized and diagonalized…
We study reheating after the end of inflation in models where the inflaton is the superpartner of goldstino and is charged under a gauged $U(1)$ R-symmetry. We consider two classes of models -- one is small field characterized by an almost…
We consider the non-equilibrium evolution of the inflaton field coupled to both lighter scalars and fermions. The dissipational dynamics of this field is studied and found to be quite different than that believed in inflationary models. In…
The Standard Model Higgs boson, which has previously been shown to develop an effective vacuum expectation value during inflation, can give rise to large particle masses during inflation and reheating, leading to temporary blocking of the…