Related papers: Reheating with Effective Potentials
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…
In the inflationary framework of cosmology the initial phase of rapid expansion has to be followed by a reheating stage, which is envisioned to end in a radiation dominated big bang. Key parameters that characterize this big bang state are…
The paradigm of the inflationary universe provides a possible explanation for several observed cosmological properties. In order for such solutions to be successful, the universe must convert the energy stored in the inflaton potential into…
Despite having important cosmological implications, the reheating phase is believed to play a crucial role in cosmology and particle physics model building. Conventionally, the model of reheating with an arbitrary coupling of inflaton to…
It is shown that the efficiency of the universe heating by an inflaton field depends not only on the possible presence of parametric resonance in the production of scalar particles but also strongly depends on the character of the inflaton…
We reexamine inflation due to a constrained inflaton in the model of a complex scalar. Inflaton evolves along a spiral-like valley of special scalar potential in the scalar field space just like single field inflation. Sub-Planckian…
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…
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…
Polynomial inflation is a very simple and well motivated scenario. A potential with a concave ``almost'' saddle point at field value $\phi = \phi_0$ fits well the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data and makes testable predictions for the…
We note some close parallels between preheating/perturbative reheating, (p)reheating, models in post-inflationary cosmology and the dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) in quantum optics. For the plasma-mirror model we show how the effective…
Despite its importance for modeling the homogeneous hot early universe very little is experimentally known about the magnitude of the reheating temperature, leaving an uncertainty of remarkable 18 orders of magnitude. In this paper we…
We present a simple formula that allows to calculate the value of the inflaton field, denoted by $\phi$, at the scale with wavenumber mode $k$. In the extreme case of instantaneous reheating $\phi_k$ is calculated exactly and all…
In many models of inflation, reheating is realized through a coupling between the inflaton and the Higgs boson. Often, the mass of the inflaton is of order $10^{13}~$GeV determined by the amplitude of the scalar fluctuation spectrum.…
The evolution of the universe started from a hot and dense Big Bang point. Temperature fluctuation map of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation and initial seeds of large scale structures (LSS) are explained by an inflationary period…
The inflaton field is assumed to possess electric charge. The effect of the charge upon inflation is studied using a parameter \omega_0 that acts as a measure of the quantity of inflaton present. It is shown that at the end of inflation the…
The inflaton must convert its energy into radiation after inflation, which, in a conventional scenario, is caused by the perturbative inflaton decay. This reheating process would be much more complicated in some cases: the decay products…
We consider the effects of a bare mass term for the inflaton, when the inflationary potential takes the form $V(\phi)= \lambda \phi^k$ about its minimum with $k \ge 4$. We concentrate on $k=4$, but discuss general cases as well. Further, we…
We revisit the renormalizable polynomial inflection point model of inflation, focusing on the small field scenario which can be treated fully analytically. In particular, the running of the spectral index is predicted to be $\alpha = -1.43…
The reheating stage in post-inflationary cosmologies is reanalyzed. New techniques from non-equilibrium quantum field theory allow a consistent derivation of the equation of motion including the non-linearity of the dynamics. These offer a…
We develop an analytic approximation for the coincidence limit of a massive scalar propagator in an arbitrary spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic geometry. We employ this to compute the one loop corrections to the inflaton effective…