Related papers: Inflaton Decay in De Sitter Spacetime
The infrared dynamics of a minimally coupled scalar field in de Sitter spacetime can be described as Brownian motion of a particle in a medium of de Sitter temperature $T_{DS}=\frac{H}{2\pi}$. The system obeys a fluctuation-dissipation…
If the inflaton is a heavy scalar field, it may equilibrate slower than some other degrees of freedom, e.g. non-Abelian gauge bosons. In this case, perturbations in the inflaton field and in a thermal plasma coexist from a given moment…
We study the alpha vacua of de Sitter space by considering the decay rate of the inflaton field coupled to a scalar field placed in an alpha vacuum. We find an {\em alpha dependent} Bose enhancement relative to the Bunch-Davies vacuum and,…
We consider the non-equilibrium evolution of the inflaton field coupled to both lighter scalars and fermions. The dissipational dynamics of this field is studied and found to be quite different than that believed in inflationary models. In…
We consider the quasi-de Sitter geometry of the inflationary universe. We calculate the energy flux of the slowly rolling background scalar field through the quasi-de Sitter apparent horizon and set it equal to the change of the entropy…
We find that the amplitude of quantum fluctuations of the invariant de Sitter vacuum coincides exactly with that of the vacuum of a comoving observer for a massless scalar (inflaton) field. We propose redefining the actual physical power…
We present results of fully non-linear calculations of decay of the inflaton interacting with another scalar field X. Combining numerical results for cosmologically interesting range of resonance parameter, q \leq 10^6, with analytical…
In order for the inflaton to decay into radiation at the end of inflation, it needs to couple to light matter fields. In this article we determine whether such couplings cause the inflaton to decay during inflation rather than after it. We…
We propose a new mechanism to generate density perturbations in inflationary models. Spatial fluctuations in the decay rate of the inflaton field to ordinary matter lead to fluctuations in the reheating temperature. We argue that in most…
At the end of inflation, the inflaton oscillates at the bottom of its potential and these oscillations trigger a parametric instability for scalar fluctuations with wavelength $\lambda$ comprised in the instability band $(3H m)^{-1/2}…
It has been shown that hybrid inflation may end with the formation of non-topological solitons of inflaton field. As a first step towards a fully realistic picture of the post-inflation era and reheating in supersymmetric hybrid inflation…
While ubiquitous in supersymmetric and string theory models, inflationary scenarios near an inflection point in the scalar potential generically require a severe fine-tuning of a priori unrelated supersymmetry breaking effects. We show that…
During inflation, the geometry of spacetime is described by a (quasi-)de Sitter phase. Inflationary observables are determined by the underlying (softly broken) de Sitter isometry group SO(1, 4) which acts like a conformal group on R^3:…
We study the phenomenology of a realistic version of the chaotic inflationary model, which can be fully and directly explored in particle physics experiments. The inflaton mixes with the Standard Model Higgs boson via the scalar potential,…
We revisit the renormalizable polynomial inflection point model of inflation, focusing on the small field scenario which can be treated fully analytically. In particular, the running of the spectral index is predicted to be $\alpha = -1.43…
We examine the spectrum of inflaton fluctuations resulting from any given long period of exponential inflation. Infrared and ultraviolet divergences in the inflaton dispersion summed over all modes do not appear in our approach. We show how…
We compute the rate with which super-Hubble cosmological fluctuations are decohered during inflation, by their gravitational interactions with unobserved shorter-wavelength scalar and tensor modes. We do so using Open Effective Field Theory…
The Standard Model Higgs boson, which has previously been shown to develop an effective vacuum expectation value during inflation, can give rise to large particle masses during inflation and reheating, leading to temporary blocking of the…
During cosmological inflation, it has been suggested that fields coupled to the inflaton can be excited by the slow-rolling inflaton into a quasi-stable non-vacuum state. Within this scenario of ``warm inflation'', this could allow for a…
We study the possibility that, after inflation, the inflaton reaches thermal equilibrium with the Standard Model thermal bath and eventually freezes-out in the non-relativistic regime. When the inflaton decay is the sole source of…