Related papers: Thermalization after inflation and production of m…
We discuss production of heavy partciles during reheating. We find that the very energetic inflaton decay products can contribute to the production of massive stable particles, either through collisions with the thermal plasma, or through…
We present a detailed examination of thermalization after inflation for perturbative inflaton decay. Different interactions among particles in the plasma of inflaton decay products are considered and it will be shown that 2 -> 2 scatterings…
We point out that inflaton decay products acquire plasma masses during the reheating phase following inflation. The plasma masses may render inflaton decay kinematicaly forbidden, causing the temperature to remain frozen for a period at a…
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 revisit the non-thermal dark matter (DM) production during the thermalization and reheating era after inflation. The decay of inflaton produces high-energy particles that are thermalized to complete the reheating of the Universe. Before…
If reheating of the Universe takes place via Planck-suppressed decay, it seems that the thermalization of produced particles might be delayed, since they have large energy/small number densities and number violating large angle scatterings…
We point out that inflaton decays can be a copious source of stable or long--lived particles $\chi$ with mass exceeding the reheat temperature $T_R$. Once higher order processes are included, this statement is true for any $\chi$ particle…
We consider the conditions for the decay products of perturbative inflaton decay to thermalize. The importance of considering the full spectrum of inflaton decay products in the thermalization process is emphasized. It is shown that the…
We revisit gravitino production following inflation. As a first step, we review the standard calculation of gravitino production in the thermal plasma formed at the end of post-inflationary reheating when the inflaton has completely…
We study thermalization of the early Universe when the inflaton can decay into the Standard Model (SM) quarks and gluons, using QCD arguments. We describe the possible formation of the thermal plasma of soft gluons and quarks well before…
All species of (non-conformally-coupled) particles are produced during inflation so long as their mass $M$ is not too much larger than $H$, the expansion rate during inflation. It has been shown that if a particle species that is normally…
The mechanism of thermal inflation, a relatively short period of accelerated expansion after primordial inflation, is a desirable ingredient for a certain class of particle physics models if they are not to be in contention with the…
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 examine the particle production via preheating at the end of inflation in supersymmetric theories. The inflaton and matter scalars are now necessarily complex fields, and their relevant interactions are restricted by holomorphy. In…
At the end of inflation, the inflaton field decays into an initially nonthermal population of relativistic particles which eventually thermalize. We consider the production of dark matter from this relativistic plasma, focusing on the…
Reheating after inflation can occur through inflaton decay or efficient parametric resonant production of particles from the oscillation of the inflaton. If the particles produced interact with scalars that were light during inflation, then…
Heavy-ion colliders have revealed the process of "fast thermalization". This experimental breakthrough has led to new theoretical tools to study the thermalization process at both weak and strong coupling. We apply this to the reheating…
We show that the decay of the inflaton field may be incomplete, while nevertheless successfully reheating the universe and leaving a stable remnant that accounts for the present dark matter abundance. We note, in particular, that since 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…
Thermal history after inflation is studied in a chaotic inflation model with supersymmetric couplings of the inflaton to matter fields. Time evolution equation is solved in a formalism that incorporates both the back reaction of particle…