Related papers: Nonequilibrium dynamics in scalar hybrid models
Inflation may occur while rolling into the metastable supersymmetry-breaking vacuum of massive supersymmetric QCD. We explore the range of parameters in which slow-roll inflation and long-lived metastable supersymmetry breaking may be…
Non-equilibrium phase transitions of a scalar field in an expanding spacetime are discussed. These transitions are shown to lead, for appropriate potential energy functions, to a biased choice of vacuum structure which can be analytically…
Cosmological models with inflation and those with bounce have their own strengths and weaknesses. Here we construct a model in which a phase of bounce is followed by a viable inflationary phase. This incorporates several advantages of both…
The dynamics of the true-vacuum bubbles nucleated during a first-order phase transition is affected by the distribution functions of the particle species in the plasma, driven out-of-equilibrium by the travelling domain wall. An accurate…
We numerically study the evolution of a classical real scalar field in ${(1+1)}$ dimensions with initial conditions describing thermal fluctuations around a metastable vacuum. We track false vacuum decay in real time and compare several…
The dynamics of hybrid models is usually approximated by the evolution of a scalar field slowly rolling along a nearly flat valley. Inflation ends with a waterfall phase, due to a tachyonic instability. This final phase is usually assumed…
We identify a new inflationary regime for which more than 60 e-folds are generated classically during the waterfall phase occuring after the usual hybrid inflation. By performing a bayesian Monte-Carlo-Markov-Chain analysis, this scenario…
The quantum decay of a relativistic scalar field from a metastable state ("false vacuum decay") is a fundamental idea in quantum field theory and cosmology. This occurs via local formation of bubbles of true vacuum with their subsequent…
We study the supersymmetric hybrid model near and after the end of inflation. As usual, we reduce the model to a purely scalar hybrid model on the level of the classical fields. But on the level of quantum fluctuations and their…
Metastable `false' vacuum states are an important feature of the Standard Model of particle physics and many theories beyond it. Describing the dynamics of a phase transition out of a false vacuum via the nucleation of bubbles is essential…
We study the quantum fluctuations of scalar fields with a variable effective mass during an inflationary phase. We consider the situation where the effective mass depends on a background scalar field, which evolves during inflation from…
In order to study the validity of analytical formulas used in the calculation of characteristic physical quantities related to vacuum bubbles, we conduct several numerical simulations of bubble kinematics in the context of cosmological…
We derive an uncertainty relation for the energy density and pressure of a quantum scalar field in a time-dependent, homogeneous and isotropic, classical background, which implies the existence of large fluctuations comparable to their…
We present a new general mechanism for generating curvature perturbations after inflation. Our model is based on the simple assumption that a field that starts to oscillate after inflation has a potential characterized by an underlying…
The linear cosmological perturbation theory of almost homogeneous and isotropic perfect fluid and scalar field universes is reconsidered and formally simplified. Using the existence of a covariant conserved quantity on large perturbation…
At the end of inflation, dynamical instability can rapidly deposit the energy of homogeneous cold inflaton into excitations of other fields. This process, known as preheating, is rather violent, inhomogeneous and non-linear, and has to be…
We study the non-linear dynamics of an inflationary phase transition in a quartically self coupled inflaton model within the framework of a de Sitter background. Large N and Hartree non-perturbative approximations combined with…
We study the non-equilibrium dynamics of a system of coupled scalar fields in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe. We consider the evolution of spatially homogeneous "classical" fields and of their quantum fluctuations including the…
We study the dynamical evolution of a phase interface or bubble in the context of a \lambda \phi^4 + g \phi^6 scalar quantum field theory. We use a self-consistent mean-field approximation derived from a 2PI effective action to construct an…
In this brief review we introduce the methods of quantum field theory out of equilibrium and study the non-equilibrium aspects of phase transitions. Specifically we critically study the picture of the ``slow-roll'' phase transition in the…