Related papers: Scalaron Decay in Perturbative Quantum Gravity
A new class of gravity-matter model defined with an independent non-Riemannian volume form is studied, in the second order formalism. The action has a global scale invariance symmetry, which can be broken by the equation of motion of the…
At the first stage of reheating after inflation, parametric resonance may rapidly transfer most of the energy of an inflaton field $\phi$ to the energy of other bosons. We show that quantum fluctuations of scalar and vector fields produced…
We describe a new type of gravity-matter models where gravity couples in a non-conventional way to two distinct scalar fields providing a unified Lagrangian action principle description of: (a) the evolution of both "early" and "late"…
We generalize the big-bang model in a previous paper by extending the real vacuum scalar field to a complex vacuum scalar field, within the FLRW framework. The phase dynamics of the scalar field, which makes the universe a superfluid, is…
In the context of inflationary cosmology, we discuss a minimal baryogenesis scenario in which the resulting baryon to entropy ratio is determined by the amplitude of the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background. The model involves a…
We show that in large-field inflationary scenarios, superheavy (many orders of magnitude larger than the weak scale) dark matter will be produced in cosmologically interesting quantities if superheavy stable particles exist in the mass…
Previously defined covariant and gauge-invariant perturbation variables, representing, e.g., the fractional spatial energy density gradient on hypersurfaces of constant expansion, are used to simplify the linear perturbation analysis of a…
The scale--independence of the primordial curvature perturbation suggests that it comes from the vacuum fluctuation during inflation of a light scalar field. This field may be the inflaton, or a different `curvaton' field. The observation…
A pseudoscalar inflaton $\varphi$, coupled to the topological charge density $F\tilde{F}$ of a non-Abelian sector, can decay to gauge bosons ($\varphi\to g g $), which may thermalize rapidly. The friction felt by $\varphi$ is then increased…
In conformally flat background geometries the long wavelength gravitons can be described in the fluid approximation and they induce scalar fluctuations both during inflation and in the subsequent radiation-dominated epoch. While this effect…
We argue that $\Lambda$-driven inflation must overshoot into an era of deflation. The deflationary period ends quickly with the creation of a hot dense thermal barrier to the forward propagation of quantum correlations from the period of…
We consider the production of matter and radiation during reheating after inflation, restricting our attention solely to gravitational interactions. Processes considered are the exchange of a graviton, $h_{\mu \nu}$, involved in the…
We propose a model for early universe cosmology without the need for fundamental scalar fields. Cosmic acceleration and phenomenologically viable reheating of the universe results from a series of energy transitions, where during each…
The usual sphaleron bound and the statement of the impossibility of baryon production at a second order phase transition or analytic cross-over are reformulated in the first part of the paper as requirements of the expansion rate of the…
We show, within the single-field inflationary paradigm, that a linear non-minimal interaction $\xi\,M_P\,\phi\,R$ between the inflaton field $\phi$ and the Ricci scalar $R$ can result in successful inflation that concludes with an efficient…
We present a unified model where the same scalar field can drive inflation and account for the present dark matter abundance. This scenario is based on the incomplete decay of the inflaton field into right-handed neutrino pairs, which is…
In the context of the braneworld inflation driven by a bulk scalar field, we study the energy dissipation from the bulk scalar field into the matter on the brane in order to understand the reheating after inflation. Deriving the late-time…
If cosmic inflation was driven by an electrically neutral scalar field stable on cosmological time scales, the field necessarily constitutes all or part of dark matter (DM). We study this possibility in a scenario where the inflaton field…
A model of high scale inflation is presented where the radial part of the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) field with a non-minimal coupling to gravity plays the role of the inflaton, and the QCD axion is the dark matter. A quantum fluctuation of…
We demonstrate that the scalaron, a scalar degree of freedom, emerging from the $f(R)$ theory of gravity, can account for the observed dark matter (DM) abundance if its mass is around the MeV scale, to ensure its cosmological stability.…