Related papers: Vacuum Polarization Effects During the Reheating E…
We study a model for reheating that has been much investigated for parametric resonance, having a quartic interaction of the scalar inflaton with another scalar field. Attention is particularly on the quantum excitations of the inflaton…
We investigated the possibility that nonlinear gravitational effects influence the preheating era after inflation, using numerical solutions of the inhomogeneous Einstein field equations. We compared our results to perturbative calculations…
The Einstein equation in a semi-classical approximation is applied to a spherical region of the universe, with the stress-energy tensor consisting of the mass density and pressure of the LambdaCDM cosmological model plus an additional…
Reheating is essential for transforming the cold, vacuum dominated Universe at the end of inflation into the hot thermal bath required by the Standard Model. In many well motivated inflationary models, however, the inflaton has no direct…
The warm inflation scenario is an alternative mechanism which can explain the isotropic and homogeneous Universe which we are living in. In this work I extend a previously introduced formalism, without the restriction of slow - roll regime.…
Loop quantum cosmology provides a nice solution of avoiding the big bang singularity through a big bounce mechanism in the high energy region. In loop quantum cosmology an inflationary universe is emergent after the big bounce, no matter…
In cosmological context, classical scalar fields are important ingredients for inflation models, many candidate models of dark energy, symmetry breaking and phase transition epochs, and their consequences such as baryo and lepto-genesis. We…
We study Weyl-invariant purely gravitational theories formulated within the Einstein-Cartan framework. In the Einstein-frame description, these models are dynamically equivalent to standard general relativity coupled to an axion-like…
During cosmological inflation, it has been suggested that fields coupled to the inflaton can be excited by the slow-rolling inflaton into a quasi-stable non-vacuum state. Within this scenario of ``warm inflation'', this could allow for a…
We use the Bogoliubov formalism to study both, particles and gravitons creation at the reheating epoch, after a phase transition from inflation to a radiation dominated universe. The modes of the inflaton field fluctuations and the scalar…
Cosmological reheating describes the transition of the post-inflationary universe to a hot and thermal state. In order to shed light on the underlying dynamics of this process, we propose to quantum-simulate the reheating-like dynamics of a…
Starobinsky has suggested an inflation model which is obtained from the vacuum Einstein's equations modified by the one-loop corrections due to quantized matter fields. Although the one-loop gravitational action is not known for a general…
The theory of cosmological fluctuations assumes that the pre-inflationary state of the universe was the quantum vacuum of a scalar field(s) coupled to gravity. The observed cosmic microwave background fluctuations are then interpreted as…
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…
We consider the effects of fragmentation on the post-inflationary epoch of reheating. In simple single field models of inflation, an inflaton condensate undergoes an oscillatory phase once inflationary expansion ends. The equation of state…
We summarize the physical mechanism by which the Cosmic Microwave Background acquires a small degree of polarization. We discuss the imprint left by gravitational waves and the use of polarization as a test of the inflationary paradigm. We…
We study the damping of an oscillating scalar field in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime by perturbative processes, taking into account the finite density effects that interactions with the plasma of decay products have on the damping…
Gravitational production of decoupled scalars during inflationary and post-inflationary phases is efficient and can lead to over-production. We study this production with various reheating scenarios such as a generic power-law inflaton…
These lecture notes intend to form a short pedagogical introduction to inflationary cosmology, highlighting selected areas of recent progress such as reheating and the theory of cosmological perturbations. Problems of principle for…
We investigate the back reaction of cosmological perturbations on an inflationary universe using the renormalization-group method. The second-order zero mode solution which appears by the nonlinearity of the Einstein equation is regarded as…