Related papers: Effects of Reheating on Moduli Stabilization
We investigate the possibility that the Universe may inflate due to moduli fields, corresponding to flat directions of supersymmetry, lifted by supergravity corrections. Using a hybrid-type potential we obtain a two-stage inflationary…
A simple model for the reheating of the universe after inflation is studied in which an essentially inhomogeneous scalar field representing matter is coupled to an essentially homogeneous scalar inflaton field. Through this coupling, the…
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…
At the end of inflation, dynamical instability can rapidly deposit the energy of homogeneous cold inflaton into excitations of other fields. This process, known as preheating, is rather violent, inhomogeneous and non-linear, and has to be…
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 explore some issues in slow roll inflation in situations where field excursions are small compared to $M_p$. We argue that for small field inflation, minimizing fine tuning requires low energy supersymmetry and a tightly constrained…
Superstring theory, models with extra dimensions and other SUSY models generically predict that the coupling constants are in fact vacuum expectation values of fields like the dilaton, moduli etc. Assuming some of these fields are light…
Thermal fluctuations provide the main source of large scale density perturbations in warm inflationary models of the early universe. For the first time, general results are obtained for the power spectrum in the case when the friction…
We propose a new model for the hemispherical power asymmetry of the CMB based on modulated reheating. Non-Gaussianity from modulated reheating can be small enough to satisfy the bound from Planck if the dominant modulation of the inflaton…
The cosmological relaxation of the electroweak scale has been proposed as a mechanism to address the hierarchy problem of the Standard Model. A field, the relaxion, rolls down its potential and, in doing so, scans the squared mass parameter…
The concept of early Universe inflation resolves several problems of hot Big Bang theory and quantitatively explains the origin of the inhomogeneities in the present Universe. However, it is not possible to arrange inflation in a scalar…
After the end of inflation, the inflaton field oscillates around a local minimum of its potential and decays into ordinary matter. These oscillations trigger a resonant instability for cosmological perturbations with wavelengths that exit…
We study the effects of particle production on the evolution of the inflaton field in an axion monodromy model with the goal of discovering in which situations the resulting dynamics will be consistent with the {\it swampland constraints}.…
We consider the presence and evolution of primordial density perturbations in a cosmological model based on a simple ansatz which captures -- by providing a set of effective gravitational field equations -- the strength of the enhanced…
We study preheating in models where the inflaton has a non-canonical kinetic term, containing powers of the usual kinetic energy. The inflaton field oscillating about its potential minimum acts as a driving force for particle production…
We analyze the interplay between K\"ahler moduli stabilization and chaotic inflation in supergravity. While heavy moduli decouple from inflation in the supersymmetric limit, supersymmetry breaking generically introduces non-decoupling…
We argue that the fine tuning problems of scalar-driven inflation may be worse than is commonly believed. The reason is that reheating requires the inflaton to be coupled to other matter fields whose vacuum fluctuations alter the inflaton…
We study thermally induced density perturbations during inflation. This scenario is characterized by two thermodynamical conditions: (1) The primordial perturbations originate in the epoch when the inflationary universe contains a…
The amplitude of primordial curvature perturbations is enhanced when a radiation bath at a temperature T>H is sustained during inflation by dissipative particle production, which is particularly significant when a non-trivial statistical…
We study models in which the inflaton is coupled to two otherwise decoupled sectors, and the effect of preheating and related processes on their energy densities during the evolution of the universe. Over most of parameter space, preheating…