Related papers: From (p)reheating to nucleosynthesis
We describe how cosmology has converged towards a beautiful model of the Universe: the Big Bang Universe. We praise this model, but show there is a dark side to it. This dark side is usually called ``the cosmological problems'': a set of…
Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), an epoch of primordial nuclear transformations in the expanding Universe, has left an observable imprint in the abundances of light elements. Precision observations of such abundances, combined with…
During its hot, dense, early evolution the Universe was a primordial nuclear reactor, synthesizing the light nuclides D, 3He, 4He and 7Li in the first thousand seconds. The presently observed abundances of these relic nuclides provide a…
Different well-know ways to reheat the universe such as instant preheating, the creation of particles nearly or conformally coupled with gravity, or from the decay products of a curvaton field, are revisited and discussed in detail in the…
Within the first 20 minutes of the evolution of the hot, dense, early Universe, astrophysically interesting abundances of deuterium, helium-3, helium-4, and lithium-7 were synthesized by the cosmic nuclear reactor. The primordial abundances…
A rapid phase of accelerated expansion in the early universe, known as inflation, dilutes all matter except the vacuum induced quantum fluctuations. These are responsible for seeding the initial perturbations in the baryonic matter, the…
Cosmological reheating bridges the inflationary epoch and the hot big bang phase, yet its underlying dynamics remain poorly understood. In this work, we investigate a minimal scenario in which the inflaton evolves under a simple power-law…
In inflationary cosmology, the particles constituting the Universe are created after inflation in the process of reheating due to the interaction with the oscillating inflaton field. We briefly review the basics of the slow reheating, and…
The origins of the elements and isotopes of cosmic material is a critical aspect of understanding the evolution of the universe. Nucleosynthesis typically requires physical conditions of high temperatures and densities. These are found in…
We show how recent data from observations of the cosmic microwave background may suggest the presence of additional radiation density which appeared after big bang nucleosynthesis. We propose a general scheme by which this radiation could…
The transition from the end of inflation to a hot, thermal Universe, commonly referred to as (re)heating, is a critical yet often misunderstood phase in early Universe cosmology. This short review aims to provide a comprehensive,…
The cosmic expansion history proceeds in broad terms from a radiation dominated epoch to matter domination to an accelerated, dark energy dominated epoch. We investigate whether intermittent periods of acceleration are possible in the early…
With the recent measurements of temperature and polarization anisotropies in the microwave background by WMAP, we have entered a new era of precision cosmology, with the cosmological parameters of a Standard Cosmological Model determined to…
For a brief time in its early evolution the Universe was a cosmic nuclear reactor. The expansion and cooling of the Universe limited this epoch to the first few minutes, allowing time for the synthesis in astrophysically interesting…
A new cosmic scenario with gravitationally induced particle creation is proposed. In this model the Universe evolves from an early to a late time de Sitter era, with the recent accelerating phase driven only by the negative creation…
The discovery and confirmation that some nuclides were formed soon after the Big Bang is one of the strongest arguments in favour of the Hot Big Bang theory. The process of combining protons and neutrons in a hot, expanding universe is…
Primordial nucleosynthesis provides a probe of the Universe during its early evolution. Given the progress exploring the constituents, structure, and recent evolution of the Universe, it is timely to review the status of Big Bang…
Post-inflationary reheating phase is usually said to be solely governed by the decay of coherently oscillating inflaton into radiation. In this submission, we explore a new avenue toward reheating through the evaporation of primordial black…
Mirror matter is a promising self-collisional dark matter candidate. Here we study the evolution of thermodynamical quantities in the early Universe for temperatures below ~100 MeV in presence of a hidden mirror sector with unbroken parity…
Mechanisms for the generation of the matter-antimatter asymmetry and dark matter strongly depend on the reheating temperature T_R, the maximal temperature reached in the early universe. Forthcoming results from the LHC, low energy…