We investigate a possibility of reheating in a scenario of D-brane inflation in a warped deformed conifold background which includes perturbative corrections to throat geometry sourced by chiral operator of dimension 3/2 in the CFT. The effective D-brane potential, in this case, belongs to the class of non-oscillatory models of inflation for which the conventional reheating mechanism does not work. We find that gravitational particle production is inefficient and leads to reheating temperature of the order of ${10^8} GeV$. We show that instant preheating is quite suitable to the present scenario and can easily reheat universe to a temperature which is higher by about three orders of magnitudes than its counter part associated with gravitational particle production. The reheating temperature is shown to be insensitive to a particular choice of inflationary parameters suitable to observations.
The epochs of reheating and preheating are studied in a simple extension of the Starobinsky inflationary model, which consists of an $R^2$--correction to the Einstein--Hilbert action and an additional scalar field. We find that if the $R^2$--correction at the end of inflation is dynamically important, it affects the expansion rate and as a consequence the reheating and preheating processes. While we find that the reheating temperature and duration of reheating are only slightly affected, the effect has to be taken into account when comparing the theory to data. In the case of preheating, the g…
The preheating process in the mixed Higgs-$ R^2 $ model has been investigated in depth recently, but the analysis of perturbative reheating is still missing. In this paper, we discuss the effect of perturbative decay during (p)reheating in this model. It is shown that perturbative decay can play an important role throughout the whole reheating process. Depending on the model parameters, perturbative decay can affect different stages of the reheating. We study the perturbative reheating with and without the presence of early preheating stage, and calculate the reheating temperature and the dura…
We calculate particle production during inflation and in the early stages of reheating after inflation in models with a charged scalar field coupled to Abelian and non-Abelian gauge fields. A detailed analysis of the power spectra of primordial electric fields, magnetic fields and charge fluctuations at the end of inflation and preheating is provided. We carefully account for the Gauss constraints during inflation and preheating, and clarify the role of the longitudinal components of the electric field. We calculate the timescale for the back-reaction of the produced gauge fields on the inflat…
It is assumed that during inflation, all energy was contained in a slow-rolling inflaton field $ϕ$. The particles constituting the Universe are created due to interactions with the field $ϕ$ coherently oscillating after inflation. The leading channel of the particle production would be the non-perturbative regime of parametric resonance, preheating. Some of the recent developments in the theory of preheating are briefly reviewed. As a prototype we use the model ${λ\over 4}ϕ^4 + {m^2 \over 2}ϕ^2+ {g^2\over 2}ϕ^2χ^2$ in an expanding universe. In different domains of parameters the character of p…
Reheating is an important part of inflationary cosmology. It describes the production of Standard Matter particles after the phase of accelerated expansion. We give a review of the reheating process, focusing on an in-depth discussion of the preheating stage which is characterized by exponential particle production due to a parametric resonance or tachyonic instability. We give a brief overview of the thermalization process after preheating and end with a survey of some applications to supersymmetric theories and to other issues in cosmology such as baryogenesis, dark matter and metric preheat…
We study preheating in DBI hybrid inflation. Preheating occurs since the matter fields are non-minimally coupled to the inflaton. Despite the coupling being small, preheating happens as a narrow parametric resonance in which matter fields and inflaton modes are exponentially created. We show that, within the approximations used, the process is very efficient at late times. The resonance stage gives way to the decay of the inflaton into bosonic or fermionic degrees of freedom and the corresponding reheating temperature is determined.
Inflation in the early Universe can be followed by a brief period of preheating, resulting in rapid and non-equilibrium particle production through the dynamics of parametric resonance. However, the parametric resonance effect is very sensitive to the linearity of the reheating sector. Additional self-interactions in the reheating sector, such as non-canonical kinetic terms like the DBI Lagrangian, may enhance or frustrate the parametric resonance effect of preheating. In the case of a DBI reheating sector, preheating is described by parametric resonance of a damped relativistic harmonic oscil…
We study the evolution of the Universe at early stages, we discuss also preheating in the framework of hybrid braneworld inflation by setting conditions on the coupling constants $λ$ and $g$\ for effective production of $χ$-particles. Considering the phase between the time observable CMB scales crossed the horizon and the present time, we write reheating and preheating parameters $N_{re}$, $T_{re}$ and $N_{pre}$ in terms of the scalar spectral index $n_{s}$, and prove that, unlike the reheating case, the preheating duration does not depend on the values of the equation of state $ω^{\ast }$. We…
In inflationary cosmology, the particles constituting the Universe are created after inflation in the process of reheating due to the interaction with the oscillating inflaton field. We briefly review the basics of the slow reheating, and the stage of fast preheating, when the particles are created explosively in the regime of parametric resonance. The non-perturbative, out-of-equilibrium character of the parametric resonance changes many features of reheating. For these proceedings, we will highlight a few aspects of preheating: the structural dependence of the parametric resonance on the inf…
During the last ten years a detailed investigation of preheating was performed for chaotic inflation and for hybrid inflation. However, nonperturbative effects during reheating in the new inflation scenario remained practically unexplored. We do a full analysis of preheating in new inflation, using a combination of analytical and numerical methods. We find that the decay of the homogeneous component of the inflaton field and the resulting process of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the simplest models of new inflation usually occurs almost instantly: for the new inflation on the GUT scale it t…
We have studied the preheating phase for a class of plateau inflationary model considering the four-legs interaction term $(1/2)g^2ϕ^2χ^2$ between the inflaton $(ϕ)$ and reheating field $(χ)$. We specifically focus on the effects of a parameter $ϕ_*$ that controls inflationary dynamics and the shape of the inflaton potential. For $ϕ_* < M_p$, the departure of the inflaton potential from the usual power-law behavior $ϕ^n$ significantly modifies the microscopic behavior of the preheating dynamics. We analyze and compare the efficiency of production, thermalization and the final equation of state…
We study inflationary models in which the effective potential of the inflaton field does not have a minimum, but rather gradually decreases at large $ϕ$. In such models the inflaton field does not oscillate after inflation, and its effective mass becomes vanishingly small, so the standard theory of reheating based on the decay of the oscillating inflaton field does not apply. For a long time the only mechanism of reheating in such non-oscillatory (NO) models was based on gravitational particle production in an expanding universe. This mechanism is very inefficient. We will show that it may lea…
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 mechanism. Subsequently, the produced scalar field decays into normal matter accompanied by the usual reheating mechanism. As an inflationary model, we identify the inflaton as a field which gives rise to a mass for the right-handed (s)neutrino. One of the interesting consequences of the instant preheating mechanism is the fact that the reheating temperature…
We study (p)reheating in modular (closed string) inflationary scenarios, with a special emphasis on Kahler moduli/Roulette models. It is usually assumed that reheating in such models occurs through perturbative decays. However, we find that there are very strong non-perturbative preheating decay channels related to the particular shape of the inflaton potential (which is highly nonlinear and has a very steep minimum). Preheating after modular inflation, proceeding through a combination of tachyonic instability and broad-band parametric resonance, is perhaps the most violent example of preheati…
We study non-Gaussianity in two distinct models of preheating: instant and tachyonic. In instant preheating non-Gaussianity is sourced by the local terms generated through the coupled perturbations of the two scalar fields. We find that the non-Gaussianity parameter is given by $f_{NL}^ϕ\sim 2g < O(1)$, where $g$ is a coupling constant, so that instant preheating is unlikely to be constrained by WMAP or Planck. In the case of tachyonic preheating non-Gaussianity arises solely from the instability of the tachyon matter and is found to be large. We find that for single field inflation the presen…
After the end of inflation, the inflaton field oscillates around a local minimum of its potential and decays into ordinary matter. These oscillations trigger a resonant instability for cosmological perturbations with wavelengths that exit the Hubble radius close to the end of inflation. In this paper, we study the formation of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) at these enhanced scales. We find that the production mechanism can be so efficient that PBHs subsequently dominate the content of the universe and reheating proceeds from their evaporation. Observational constraints on the PBH abundance als…
Recently, it has been shown that during preheating the entropy modes circulating in the loops, which correspond to the inflaton decay products, meaningfully modify the cosmological correlation functions at superhorizon scales. In this paper, we determine the significance of the same effect when reheating occurs in the perturbative regime. In a typical two scalar field model, the magnitude of the loop corrections are shown to depend on several parameters like the background inflaton amplitude in the beginning of reheating, the inflaton decay rate and the inflaton mass. Although the loop contrib…
Reheating after inflation occurs due to particle production by the oscillating inflaton field. In this paper we describe the perturbative approach to reheating, and then concentrate on effects beyond the perturbation theory. They are related to the stage of parametric resonance called preheating. It may occur in an expanding universe if the initial amplitude of oscillations of the inflaton field is large enough. We investigate a simple model of a massive inflaton field coupled to another scalar field X. Parametric resonance in this model is very broad. It occurs in a very unusual stochastic ma…
Many models of supersymmetry breaking, in the context of either supergravity or superstring theories, predict the presence of particles with Planck-suppressed couplings and masses around the weak scale. These particles are generically called moduli. The excessive production of moduli in the early Universe jeopardizes the successful predictions of nucleosynthesis. In this paper we show that the efficient generation of these dangerous relics is an unescapable consequence of a wide variety of inflationary models which have a preheating stage. Moduli are generated as coherent states in a novel way…
Coherent oscillations of the inflaton field at the end of inflation can parametrically excite fermions in much the same way that bosons are created in preheating. Although Pauli-blocking prohibits the occupation number of created fermions from growing exponentially, fermion production occurs in a manner significantly different from the expectations of simple perturbation theory. Here, I discuss the nature of fermion production after inflation and possible applications including the efficient transfer of inflaton energy and the production of super-massive fermions during fermionic preheating.
We consider the single field chaotic m^2ϕ^2 inflationary model with a period of preheating, where the inflaton decays to another scalar field χ in the parametric resonance regime. In a recent work, one of us has shown that the χ modes circulating in the loops during preheating notably modify the <ζζ> correlation function. We first rederive this result using a different gauge condition hence reconfirm that superhorizon ζ modes are affected by the loops in preheating. Further, we examine how χ loops give rise to non-gaussianity and affect the tensor perturbations. For that, all cubic and some hi…
We describe a new efficient mechanism of reheating. Immediately after rolling down the rapidly moving inflaton field $ϕ$ produces particles $χ$, which may be either bosons or fermions. This is a nonperturbative process which occurs almost instantly; no oscillations or parametric resonance is required. The effective masses of the $χ$ particles may be very small at the moment when they are produced, but they ``fatten'' when the field $ϕ$ increases. When the particles $χ$ become sufficiently heavy, they rapidly decay to other, lighter particles. This leads to an almost instantaneous reheating acc…
We consider reheating in a class of asymptotically safe quantum field theories recently studied in \cite{Litim:2014uca, Litim:2015iea}. These theories allow for an inflationary phase in the very early universe. Inflation ends with a period of reheating. Since the models contain many scalar fields which are intrinsically coupled to the inflaton there is the possibility of parametric resonance instability in the production of these fields, and the danger that the induced curvature fluctuations will become too large. Here we show that the parametric instability indeed arises, and that hence the e…
Motivated by Refs \cite{am1,am2}, we analyze how the inflaton decay reheats the Universe within supersymmetry. In a non-supersymmetric case the inflaton usually decays via preheating unless its couplings to other fields are very small. Naively one would expect that supersymmetry enhances bosonic preheating as it introduces new scalars such as squarks and sleptons. On the contrary, we point out that preheating is unlikely within supersymmetry. The reason is that flat directions in the scalar potential, classified by gauge invariant combinations of slepton and squark fields, are generically disp…
Weak Gravity Conjecture in the sky: gravitational waves from preheating in Einstein-Maxwell-Scalar EFT
School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（基础物理与数学科学学院，杭州高等研究院，中国科学院大学）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Department of Physics, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London（帝国理工学院布莱克特物理学系）；International Centre for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific（亚太理论物理中心）
We study the production of primordial circular ("V-mode") polarization in axion inflation coupled to fermions and gauge fields, with special attention paid to (p)reheating. We construct the power spectrum of $V$, and find a blue-tilted spectrum with index $n_V=4$. This is independent of the dominant decay channel of the inflaton (direct fermion vs. direct photon production)
Preheating after inflation may lead to nonthermal phase transitions with symmetry restoration. These phase transitions may occur even if the total energy density of fluctuations produced during reheating is relatively small as compared with the vacuum energy in the state with restored symmetry. As a result, in some inflationary models one encounters a secondary, nonthermal stage of inflation due to symmetry restoration after preheating. We review the theory of nonthermal phase transitions and make a prediction about the expansion factor during the secondary inflationary stage. We then present …
We study the spectrum of cosmological fluctuations in the D3/D7 brane inflationary universe with particular attention to the parametric excitation of entropy modes during the reheating stage. The same tachyonic instability which renders reheating in this model very rapid leads to an exponential growth of entropy fluctuations during the preheating stage which in turn may induce a large contribution to the large-scale curvature fluctuations. We take into account the effects of long wavelength quantum fluctuations in the matter fields. As part of this work, we perform an analytical analysis of th…
We study reheating in some one and two field realizations of {\it Fibre Inflation}. We find that reheating begins with a phase of preheating in which long wavelength fluctuation modes are excited. In two field models there is a danger that the parametric amplification of infrared fluctuations in the second scalar field - associated with an entropy mode - might induce an instability of the curvature fluctuations. We show that, at least in the models we consider, the entropy mode has a sufficiently large mass to prevent this instability. Hence, from the point of view of reheating the models we c…
We propose a scenario where preheating occurs for a specific duration that is parametrized by an e-folds number $N_{pre}$, our results suggest a direct correlation between the preheating duration and the density of gravitational waves (GWs) produced during this phase. Moreover, we investigate the consequences of the inflationary parameters on the $α$-attractor E model in the small $α$ limits. In this framework, we perform investigations on the preheating parameters involving the number of e-folds $N_{pre}$, and the temperature of reheating $T_{re}$, then we show that the parameter $n$ associat…
A new mechanism for generating the curvature perturbation at the end of inflaton has been investigated. The dominant contribution to the primordial curvature perturbation may be generated during the period of instant preheating. The mechanism converts isocurvature perturbation related to a light field into curvature perturbation, where the ``light field'' is not the inflaton field. This mechanism is important in inflationary models where kinetic energy is significant at the end of inflaton. We show how one can apply this mechanism to various brane inflationary models.
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 significant super-horizon density perturbations are generated during this era. These perturbations can be highly non-Gaussian.
Symmetry restoration processes during the non-equilibrium stage of ``preheating'' after inflation is studied. It is shown that symmetry restoration is very efficient when the majority of created particles are concentrated at energies much smaller than the temperature $T$ in equilibrium. The strength of symmetry restoration measured in terms of the equivalent temperature can exceed $T$ by many orders of magnitude. In some models the effect can be equivalent to that if the temperature of instant reheating would be close to the Planck scale. This can have an important impact on GUT and axion mode…
Fermion creation during preheating in the presence of multiple scalar fields exhibits a range of interesting behaviour relevant to estimating post-inflation gravitino abundances. We present non-perturbative analysis of this phenomenon over a 6-dimensional parameter space in an expanding background paying particular attention to the interplay between instant and direct fermion preheating. In the broad resonance regime we find that instant fermion production is sensitive to suppression of the long wavelength scalar field modes during inflation. Further, the standard scenario of resonant fermioni…
We propose a two-phase reheating scenario where the initial preheating dynamics is described by an effective dynamics followed by the standard perturbative reheating. Some of the important universal results of lattice simulation during preheating have been considered as crucial inputs in our two-phase dynamics. In this framework, detailed phenomenological constraints have been obtained on the inflaton couplings with reheating fields, and dark matter parameters in terms of CMB constrained inflationary scalar spectral index. It is observed that the conventional reheating scenario generically pre…
We analyse models of inflation in which isocurvature perturbations present during inflation are converted into the primordial curvature perturbation during instant preheating. This can be due to an asymmetry between the fields present either during inflation or during preheating. We consider all the constraints that the model must satisfy in order to be theoretically valid and to satisfy observations. We show that the constraints are very tight in all of the models proposed and special initial conditions are required for the models to work. In the case where the symmetry is strongly broken dur…
We study how the universe reheats following an era of chaotic Dirac-Born-Infeld inflation, and compare the rate of particle production with that in models based on canonical kinetic terms. Particle production occurs through non-perturbative resonances whose structure is modified by the nonlinearities of the Dirac-Born-Infeld action. We investigate these modifications and show that the reheating process may be efficient. We estimate the initial temperature of the subsequent hot, radiation-dominated phase.
Particle production caused by the oscillation after inflation is important since it explains reheating after inflation. On the particle theory side, we know that effective action may have additional higher dimensional terms (usually called non-renormalizable terms) suppressed by the cut-off scale. Moreover, interaction between inflaton and so-called moduli field will be higher dimensional. Therefore, if such higher dimensional interaction is significant for resonant particle production, one cannot avoid the effect in preheating study. We explicitly calculated the required number of oscillation…
We revisit the reheating mechanism after the end of inflation in the non-minimal derivative coupling (NDC) to gravity with quadratic potential. This is because the inflaton of the NDC should describe the slow-roll inflation as well as the preheating stage after the end of inflation. We point out that the non-periodic inflaton solution implies the absence of parametric resonance, compared to the periodic oscillating inflaton for the canonical coupling (CC) to gravity. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that narrow and broad parametric resonances do not appear after the end of inflation in the NDC …
We review the theory of inflation with single and multiple fields paying particular attention to the dynamics of adiabatic and entropy/isocurvature perturbations which provide the primary means of testing inflationary models. We review the theory and phenomenology of reheating and preheating after inflation providing a unified discussion of both the gravitational and nongravitational features of multi-field inflation. In addition we cover inflation in theories with extra dimensions and models such as the curvaton scenario and modulated reheating which provide alternative ways of generating lar…
In inflationary cosmology, the particles constituting the Universe are created after inflation in the process of reheating due to their interaction with the oscillating inflaton field. In the bosonic sector, the leading channel of particle production is the non-perturbative regime of parametric resonance, preheating, during which bosons are created exponentially fast. Pauli blocking prohibits the unbounded creation of fermions. For this reason, it has been silently assumed that the creation of fermions can be treated with perturbation theory for the decay of individual inflatons. We consider t…
We explore preheating in multi-field models of inflation in which the field-space metric is a highly curved hyperbolic manifold. One broad family of such models is called $α$-attractors, whose single-field regimes have been extensively studied in the context of inflation and supergravity. We focus on a simple two-field generalization of the $T$-model, which has received renewed attention in the literature. Krajewski et al. concluded, using lattice simulations, that multi-field effects can dramatically speed-up preheating. We recover their results and further demonstrate that significant analyt…
Gravitational waves from self-resonance during reheating with a quantum-corrected inflaton potential
The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence (Deemed to be University)（希夫纳达尔卓越学院（视为大学））；RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS), RIKEN（理化学研究所交叉理论数学科学中心（iTHEMS））；Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University（京都大学汤川理论物理研究所）
We study a model of quintessential inflation in the context of Palatini gravity. As a representative example, we consider the Peebles-Vilenkin model of quintessential inflation with a small non-minimal coupling to gravity, which is consistent with the most recent Planck measurements. At the end of inflation, the inflaton field passes through a tachyonic region and it leads to explosive particle production through the tachyonic preheating process. After preheating, the Universe becomes dominated by the kinetic energy of the inflaton and enters a period of kination. Eventually, the total energy …
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 interactions with a light scalar field. We show that the presence of multiple oscillating inflatons makes parametric resonance inefficient in the case of the quartic interactions. Moreover, perturbative processes do not permit a complete decay of the inflaton for this coupling. In order to recover the hot big bang, we must instead consider trilinear couplings. In th…
We study particle production at the preheating era in inflation models with nonminimal coupling $ξϕ^2R$ and quartic potential $λϕ^4/4$ for several cases: real scalar inflaton, complex scalar inflaton and Abelian Higgs inflaton. We point out that the preheating proceeds much more violently than previously thought. If the inflaton is a complex scalar, the phase degree of freedom is violently produced at the first stage of preheating. If the inflaton is a Higgs field, the longitudinal gauge boson production is similarly violent. This is caused by a spike-like feature in the time dependence of the…
We investigate a compelling model of quintessential inflation in the context of $α$-attractors, which naturally result in a scalar potential featuring two flat regions, the inflationary plateau and the quintessential tail. The "asymptotic freedom" of $α$-attractors, near the kinetic poles, suppresses radiative corrections and interactions, which would otherwise threaten to lift the flatness of the quintessential tail and cause a 5th-force problem respectively. Since this is a non-oscillatory inflation model, we reheat the Universe through instant preheating. The parameter space is constrained …
In this talk recent developments of the theory of preheating after inflation are briefly reviewed. In inflationary cosmology, the particles constituting the Universe are created after inflation due to their interaction with moving inflaton field(s) in the process of reheating. In inflationary models motivated by supergravity, both bosons and fermions are created. In the bosonic sector, the leading channel of particle production is the non-perturbative regime of parametric resonance dominated by those bosons which are created exponentially fast with the largest characteristic exponent. In the f…
We note some close parallels between preheating/perturbative reheating, (p)reheating, models in post-inflationary cosmology and the dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) in quantum optics. For the plasma-mirror model we show how the effective plasma mass (arising from conduction electrons) behaves like an oscillating inflaton field, while created photons behave like a scalar field coupled quadratically to the inflaton. Furthermore, the effect of spacetime expansion can also be incorporated by varying the dielectric function. We propose an experiment that could mimic (p)reheating for both narrow and b…
It has been argued that the mixed Higgs-$R^2$ model acts as the UV extension of the Higgs inflation, pushing up its cut-off scale in the vacuum close up to the Planck scale. In this letter, we study the inflaton oscillation stage after inflation, focusing on the effective mass of the phase direction of the Higgs field, which can cause a violent preheating process. We find that the "spikes" in the effective mass of the phase direction observed in the Higgs inflation still appear in the mixed Higgs-$R^2$ model. While the spikes appear above the cut-off scale in the Higgs-only case, they appear b…
We demonstrate that cosmological perturbations can undergo amplification by parametric resonance during the preheating period following inflation, even on scales larger than the Hubble radius, without violating causality. A unified description of gravitational and matter fluctuations is crucial in order to determine the strength of the instability. To extract specific signatures of the oscillating inflaton field during reheating, it is essential to focus on a variable describing metric fluctuations which is constant in the standard analyses of inflation. When doing this in the case of a massiv…
The dynamics of both the preinflationary and the preheating epochs for a model consisting of a Higgs inflaton plus an additional auxiliary field are studied in full General Relativity. The minimally coupled auxiliary field allows for parametric-type resonances that successfully transfer energy from the inflaton condensate to particle excitations in both fields. Depending on the interaction strengths of the fields, the broad resonance periods lead to structure formation consisting of large under/over-densities, and possibly the formation of compact objects. Moreover, when confronting the same m…
We study preheating following Higgs inflation in the Palatini formulation of gravity. We numerically evolve perturbations of the radial mode of the Higgs field and that of three scalars modeling the gauge bosons. We compare the two non-perturbative mechanisms of growth of excitations -- parametric resonance and tachyonic instability -- and confirm that the latter plays the dominant role. Our results provide further evidence that preheating in Palatini Higgs inflation happens within a single oscillation of the Higgs field about the bottom of its potential, consistent with the approximation of a…
We consider inhomogeneous preheating in a multi-field trapping model. The curvature perturbation is generated by inhomogeneous preheating which induces multi-field trapping at the enhanced symmetric point (ESP), and results in fluctuation in the number of e-foldings. Instead of considering simple reheating after preheating, we consider a scenario of shoulder inflation induced by the trapping. The fluctuation in the number of e-foldings is generated during this weak inflationary period, when the additional light scalar field is trapped at the local maximum of its potential. The situation may lo…
We investigate the feasibility of models of inflation with a large Gauss-Bonnet coupling at late times, which have been shown to modify and prevent the end of inflation. Despite the potential of Gauss-Bonnet models in predicting favourable power spectra, capable of greatly lowering the tensor-to-scalar-ratio compared to now-disfavoured models of standard chaotic inflation, it is important to also understand in what context it is possible for post-inflationary (p)reheating to proceed and hence recover an acceptable late-time cosmology. We argue that in the previously-studied inverse power law c…
We study chaotic dynamics in preheating after inflation in which an inflaton $ϕ$ is coupled to another scalar field $χ$ through an interaction $(1/2)g^2ϕ^2χ^2$. We first estimate the size of the quasi-homogeneous field $χ$ at the beginning of reheating for large-field inflaton potentials $V(ϕ)=V_0ϕ^n$ by evaluating the amplitude of the $χ$ fluctuations on scales larger than the Hubble radius at the end of inflation. Parametric excitations of the field $χ$ during preheating can give rise to chaos between two dynamical scalar fields. For the quartic potential ($n=4$, $V_0=λ/4$) chaos actually oc…
We investigate the feasibility of explosive particle production via parametric resonance or tachyonic preheating in multi-field inflationary models by means of lattice simulations. We observe a strong suppression of resonances in the presence of four-leg interactions between the inflaton fields and a scalar matter field, leading to insufficient preheating when more than two inflatons couple to the same matter field. This suppression is caused by a dephasing of the inflatons that increases the effective mass of the matter field. Including three-leg interactions leads to tachyonic preheating, wh…
