Related papers: When Does the Inflaton Decay?
We propose a possibility that the inflaton potential is significantly modified after inflation due to heavy field dynamics. During inflation there may be a heavy scalar field stabilized at a value deviated from the low-energy minimum. As…
Particle decay during inflation is studied by implementing a dynamical renormalization group resummation combined with a small Delta expansion. Delta measures the deviation from the scale invariant power spectrum and regulates the infrared.…
We investigate the effects of large inhomogeneities in both the inflaton field and its momentum. We find that in general, large kinetic perturbations reduce the number of e-folds of inflation. In particular, we observe that inflationary…
We consider cosmological perturbations caused by modulated inflaton velocity. During inflation, the inflaton motion is damped and the velocity is determined by the parameters such as couplings or masses that may depend on light…
The end of a thermal inflation era, driven by the rolling of a flaton field coupled to the curvaton, cause a huge increment in the curvaton mass and decay rate while the curvaton is still frozen. It is shown that, if this increment is…
We analyze decay processes of the inflaton field, phi, during the coherent oscillation phase after inflation in f(phi)R gravity. It is inevitable that the inflaton decays gravitationally into gauge fields in the presence of f(phi)R…
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…
An analytic means of studying the resonant decay of the inflaton field is developed for the case of background expansion, $H \neq 0$. It is shown that the parametric resonance in the inflaton's decay need not disappear when the expansion of…
The dynamics at the end of inflation can generate an asymmetry between particles and anti-particles of the inflaton field. This asymmetry can be transferred to baryons via decays, generating a baryon asymmetry in our Universe. We explore…
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…
We perform a systematic analysis of dark matter production during post-inflationary reheating. Following the period of exponential expansion, the inflaton begins a period of damped oscillations as it decays. These oscillations and the…
We show that the decay of the inflaton field may be incomplete, while nevertheless successfully reheating the universe and leaving a stable remnant that accounts for the present dark matter abundance. We note, in particular, that since the…
At the end of inflation, the inflaton oscillates at the bottom of its potential and these oscillations trigger a parametric instability for scalar fluctuations with wavelength $\lambda$ comprised in the instability band $(3H m)^{-1/2}…
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 present a gauge invariant formalism to study the evolution of curvature perturbations during decay of the inflaton or some other field that dominates the energy density. We specialize to the case where the total curvature perturbation…
Typically the fluctuations generated from a decaying field during inflation do not contribute to the large scale structures. In this paper we provide an example where it is possible for a field which slowly rolls and then decays during…
We study perturbative reheating at the end of fibre inflation where the inflaton is a closed string modulus with a Starobinsky-like potential. We first derive the spectral index $n_s$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ as a function of the…
The reheating phase after inflation is one of the least observationally constrained epochs in the evolution of the Universe. The forthcoming gravitational wave observatories will enable us to constrain at least some of the non-standard…
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…
We study the evolution of the curvature perturbation on the super-horizon scales starting from the inflationary epoch until there remains only a single dynamical degree of freedom, presureless matter, in the universe. We consider the cosmic…