Related papers: Thermalisation after inflation
Cosmic inflation provides a compelling framework for explaining several observed features of our Universe, but its viability depends on an efficient reheating phase that converts the inflaton's energy into Standard Model particles. This…
We describe a new mechanism that gives rise to dissipation during cosmic inflation. In the simplest implementation, the mechanism requires the presence of a massive scalar field with a softly-broken global $U(1)$ symmetry, along with the…
After inflation the Universe presumably undergoes a phase of reheating which in effect starts the thermal big bang cosmology. However, so far we have very little direct experimental or observational evidence of this important phase of the…
According to the inflationary theory of cosmology, most elementary particles in the current universe were created during a period of reheating after inflation. In this work we self-consistently couple the Einstein-inflaton equations to a…
At high temperatures, gravitinos are generated in inelastic scattering processes with particles that are in thermal equilibrium with the hot primordial plasma. We consider the regeneration of gravitinos that starts with completion of…
In the warm inflation scenario, the early cosmic acceleration is driven by the inflaton coupled to thermal fields, decaying into radiation and leaving a hot universe populated by relativistic particles after the end of inflation. The…
We present an effective model where the inflaton is a relaxion that scans the Higgs mass and sets it at the weak scale. The dynamics consist of a long epoch in which inflation is due to the shallow slope of the potential, followed by a few…
The reheating phase after inflation is one of the least observationally constrained epochs in the evolution of the Universe. The forthcoming gravitational wave observatories will enable us to constrain at least some of the non-standard…
We propose a possibility that the inflaton potential is significantly modified after inflation due to heavy field dynamics. During inflation there may be a heavy scalar field stabilized at a value deviated from the low-energy minimum. As…
We discuss the production of radiation and dark matter assuming a time-dependent inflaton decay rate during the reheating period. It is shown that the time dependence of the inflaton decay rate can substantially modify the reheating…
Inflaton couplings during warm inflation result in the production of a thermal bath. Thermal friction and fluctuations can dominate the standard de Sitter analogues, resulting in a modified slow-roll scenario with a new source of density…
After cosmic inflation, the universe is cold and almost empty. Thus, the inflation field should decay to the particles for BBN through the so-called reheating process. Later, the matter-antimatter asymmetry and dark matter are produced. In…
We consider a model with nonminimal derivative coupling of inflaton to gravity. The reheating process during rapid oscillation of the inflaton is studied and the reheating temperature is obtained. Behaviors of the inflaton and produced…
The fluctuations in the inflaton field at the end of inflation which seed the density perturbations are prepared in a pure quantum state. It is generally assumed that some physics causes this pure state to decohere so that it should be…
We study in detail (p)reheating after multi-field inflation models with a particular focus on N-flation. We consider a variety of different couplings between the inflatons and the matter sector, including both quartic and trilinear…
The reheating of the universe after hybrid inflation proceeds through the nucleation and subsequent collision of large concentrations of energy density in the form of bubble-like structures moving at relativistic speeds. This generates a…
We consider primordial fluctuations in thermal inflation scenario. Since the thermal inflation drives about 10 $e$-folds after the standard inflation, the time of horizon-exit during inflation corresponding to the present observational…
We investigate gravitational reheating in the Starobinsky model in the Jordan frame, where inflation is driven by an $R^2$ modification of gravity with no explicit inflaton field. In this description, reheating proceeds exclusively through…
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 show that the inflaton condensate associated with a global symmetry can fragment into quasi stable Q balls after the end of inflation, provided the inflaton oscillations give rise to an effective equation of state with negative pressure.…