Related papers: On the reheating stage after inflation
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…
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 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 discuss thermalization through perturbative inflaton decay at the end of inflation. We find that a thermal plasma should form well before all inflatons have decayed, unless all gauge symmetries are badly broken during that epoch.…
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…
In the first stages of inflationary reheating, the temperature of the radiation produced by inflaton decays is typically higher than the commonly defined reheating temperature $T_{RH} \sim (\Gamma_\phi M_P)^{1/2}$ where $\Gamma_\phi$ is the…
In this article we calculate the reheating temperature in the cosmological scenarios where heavy scalar particles are gravitationally produced, due to a conformally coupled interaction between a massive scalar quantum field and the Ricci…
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 perform a systematic analysis of dark matter production during post-inflationary reheating. Following the period of exponential expansion, the inflaton begins a period of damped oscillations as it decays. These oscillations and the…
We analyze in detail the perturbative decay of the inflaton oscillating about a generic form of its potential $V(\phi) = \phi^k$, taking into account the effects of non-instantaneous reheating. We show that evolution of the temperature as a…
We study the role of the Standard Model Higgs condensate, formed during cosmological inflation, in the epoch of reheating that follows. We focus on the scenario where the inflaton decays slowly and perturbatively, so that there is a long…
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…
The aim of this paper is to determine an exact definition of the reheat temperature for a generic perturbative decay of the inflaton. In order to estimate the reheat temperature, there are two important conditions one needs to satisfy: (a)…
We calculate the reheating temperature in scenarios where heavy particles are gravitationally produced during a phase transition. We explore two distinct situations: the decay of these particles both during and after the kination phase.…
We discuss the reheating temperature in the instant preheating scenario. In this scenario, at the last stage of inflation, the inflaton field first decays into another scalar field with an enormous number density via the instant preheating…
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…
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…
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…