Different well-know ways to reheat the universe such as instant preheating, the creation of particles nearly or conformally coupled with gravity, or from the decay products of a curvaton field, are revisited and discussed in detail in the framework of quintessence inflation, where the inflaton field at the end of inflation, instead to oscillate, rolls monotonically towards the infinite to drive the universe to a kination regime. For any kind of these preheating (particle creation) mechanisms, in order to calculate the reheating temperature, we point out the importance of the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis bounds and the decay process of the massive fields involved in the theory, whose decay products form a relativistic plasma whose energy density eventually will dominate the one of the background after the phase transition.
We have tested some simple $Λ$CDM (the same test is also valid for quintessence) inflation models, imposing that they match with the recent observational data provided by the BICEP and Planck's team and leading to a reheating temperature, which is obtained via gravitational particle production after inflation, supporting the nucleosynthesis success.
We study the consequences of reheating in quintessential inflation. From simple inflationary quintessential models introduced in cite{hap, hap2}, we show that when the reheating is due to the production of heavy massive particles conformally coupled with gravity, a viable model which matches with the current observational data cite{Ade, Planck, bicep2} is only possible for reheating temperatures that range between $1$ GeV and $10^4$ GeV. On the other hand, when the universe reheats via the production of massless particles, the viability of the model is only possible when those particles are ne…
A new gauge-invariant criterion for stability against inhomogeneous perturbations of de Sitter space is applied to scenarios of dark energy and inflation in scalar-tensor gravity. The results extend previous studies.
We have tested some simple quintessential inflation models, imposing that they match with the recent observational data provided by the BICEP and Planck's team and leading to a reheating temperature, which is obtained via gravitational particle production after inflation, supporting the nucleosynthesis success. Moreover, for the models coming from supergravity one needs to demand low temperatures in order to avoid problems such as the gravitino overproduction or the gravitational production of moduli fields, which are obtained only when the reheating temperature is due to the production of mas…
The end of inflation is connected to the standard cosmological scenario through reheating. During reheating, the inflaton oscillates around the minimum of the potential and thus decays into the daughter particles that populate the Universe at later times. Using cosmological evolution for observable CMB scales from the time of Hubble crossing to the present time, we translate the constraint on the spectral index $n_s$ from Planck data to the constraint on the reheating scenario in the context of Kähler Moduli Inflation. In addition, we extend the de-facto analysis generally done only for the pi…
A new model for inflation using modified gravity in the Palatini formalism is constructed. Here non-minimal coupling of scalar field h with the curvature R as a general function f(R,h) is considered. Explicit inflation models for some choices of f(R,h) are developed. By writing an equivalent scalar-tensor action for this model and going over to Einstein frame, slow roll parameters are constructed. There exists a large parameter space which satisfies values of n_s and limits on r compatible with Planck 2018 data. Further, we calculate reheating temperature and the number of e-folds at the end o…
In this paper, we consider a model of quintessential inflation based upon inverse hyperbolic potential. We employ curvaton mechanism for reheating which is more efficient than gravitational particle production; the mechanism complies with nucleosynthesis constraint due to relic gravity waves. We obtain a lower bound on the coupling constant $g$ that governs the interaction of curvaton with matter fields. We study curvaton decay before domination and decay after domination and plot the allowed region in the parameter space in both cases.
We show some characteristics of three exact solutions to the Einstein's gravity minimally coupled to a Quintessence field. Besides eternal inflation, several other interesting inflationary processes, such as transitory inflation, are attained in these solutions. Singularity is avoided in some special cases.
We investigate the generation of magnetic fields from inflation, which occurs via breakdown of the conformal invariance of the electromagnetic (EM) field, when coupled with the Ricci scalar and the Gauss-Bonnet invariant. For the case of instantaneous reheating, the resulting strength of the magnetic field at present is too small and violates the observational constraints. However, the problem is solved provided there is a reheating phase with a non-zero e-fold number. During reheating, the energy density of the magnetic field is seen to evolve as $(a^3H)^{-2}$ and, after that, as $a^{-4}$ up …
The scenario of the slow-roll inflation is studied in the frame of the scalar-tensor theory of gravity where the scalar field has a non-minimal coupling to the geometric part. After deriving the main dynamical and perturbation equations, the model is investigated in detail for different functions of the potential and the coupling function. Considering the consistency of the model with observational model results into specific ranges for the free constants of the model. Then, the obtained ranges are reconsidered to realize whether they satisfy the swampland criteria. It is found that the swampl…
We study the dynamics of two concrete inflationary models, namely Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking Inflation as well as Loop Inflation. We constrain the parameters for which a viable inflationary Universe emerges using the latest PLANCK results of last year, and we give predictions for the duration of reheating as well as for the reheating temperature after inflation. Our numerical results show that baryogenesis via leptogenesis may be realized within the inflationary models considered in this work.
Reheating connects the inflationary universe to the radiation-dominated evolution of standard Big Bang cosmology. Due to the lack of direct observations, we rely on indirect bounds on this phase from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data. Using reheating constraints to arrive at additional constraints on inflationary models is prevalent in the literature. In this work, we develop a formalism to analyze the reheating constraints for the general case of single field canonical slow-roll inflation without dealing with a specific inflationary model. We find that using the lower bound on reheat…
We study the two-phase scenario following inflation, where the initial step is preheating, accompanied by a step of perturbative reheating at which inflaton field decays transferring all of its energy to create relativistic particles, the interaction of these particles will evolve towards a state of thermal equilibrium with a temperature Tre called the reheating temperature. It is observed that the scenario of reheating normally predicts the maximum reheating temperature that corresponds to an almost instantaneous transition from inflation to the radiation domination era. This will naturally l…
By extending the potential, we propose a mechanism for the end of the constant-roll inflation and the subsequent reheating phase in the FLRW space-time. Based on astrophysical data, we estimate the Universe reheating temperature.
We investigate the dependence of the gravitational wave spectrum from quintessential inflation on the reheating process. We consider two extreme reheating processes. One is the gravitational reheating by particle creation in the expanding universe in which the beginning of the radiation dominated epoch is delayed due to the presence of the epoch of domination of the kinetic energy of the inflaton (kination). The other is the instant preheating considered by Felder et al. in which the Universe becomes radiation dominated soon after the end of inflation. We find that the spectrum of the gravitat…
In this work we study one of the most appealing string theory-motivated models, we present a tachyonic inflationary model in the recently proposed symmetric teleparallel framework, and examine constraints on tachyon inflation with the exponential potential along with the reheating for a chosen $f(Q)$ gravity model. Considering a reheating phase parametrized by a number of e-folds $N_{re},$ a temperature $T_{re}$, and an equation of state $ω_{re}$, we relate the reheating parameters as functions of the exponential tachyon potential, $f(Q)$ model, and\ the spectral index $n_{s}$ parameters. We a…
We investigate the influence on the inflationary predictions from the reheating processes characterized by the $e$-folding number $N_{\mathrm{reh}}$ and the effective equation-of-state parameter $w_{\mathrm{reh}}$ during the reheating phase. For the first time, reheating processes can be constrained in the $N_{\mathrm{reh}}\!-\!w_{\mathrm{reh}}$ plane from Planck 2015. We find that for Higgs inflation with a nonminimal coupling to gravity, the predictions are insensitive to the reheating phase for current CMB measurements. We also find that the spontaneously broken SUSY inflation and axion mon…
The curvaton was introduced recently as a distinct inflationary mechanism for generating adiabatic density perturbations. Implicit in that scenario is that the curvaton offers a new mechanism for reheating after inflation, as it is a form of energy density not diluted by the inflationary expansion. We consider curvaton reheating in the context of a braneworld inflation model, {\em steep inflation}, which features a novel use of the braneworld to give a new mechanism for ending inflation. The original steep inflation model featured reheating by gravitational particle production, but the ineffic…
The curvaton reheating in a non-oscillatory inflationary universe model is studied in a Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory. For different scenarios, the temperature of reheating is computed. The result tells us that the reheating temperature becomes practically independent of the Jordan-Brans-Dicke parameter $w$. This reheating temperature results to be quite different when compared with that obtained from Einstein`s theory of gravity.
We study the cosmological inflation and reheating in a teleparallel model of gravity. Reheating is assumed to be due to the decay of a scalar field to radiation during its rapid oscillation. By using cosmological perturbations during inflation, and subsequent evolutions of the Universe, we calculate the reheating temperature as a function of the spectral index and the power spectrum.
In a recent paper, Liddle and Urena-Lopez suggested that to have a unified model of inflation and dark matter is imperative to have a proper reheating process where part of the inflaton field remains. In this paper I propose a model where this is possible. I found that, incorporating the effect of plasma masses generated by the inflaton products, enable us to stop the process. A numerical estimated model is presented.
We apply an extended version of the method developed in reference Int.J.Mod.Phys.D5(1996)71, to derive exact cosmological (flat) Friedmann-Robertson-Walker solutions in RS2 brane models with a perfect fluid of ordinary matter plus a scalar field fluid trapped on the brane. We found new exact solutions, that can serve to unify inflation and quintessence in a common theoretical framework.
For the subclass of Horndeski theory of gravity, we investigate the effects of reheating on the predictions of natural inflation. In the presence of derivative self-interaction of a scalar field and its kinetic coupling to the Einstein tensor, the gravitational friction to inflaton dynamics is enhanced. As a result, the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ is suppressed. We place the observational constraints on a natural inflation model and show that the model is now consistent with the observational data for some plausible range of the model parameter $Δ$, mainly due to the suppressed tensor-to-scalar…
We study the effects of perturbative reheating on the evolution of the curvature perturbation ζ, in two-field inflation models. We use numerical methods to explore the sensitivity of f_NL, n_s and r to the reheating process, and present simple qualitative arguments to explain our results. In general, if a large non-Gaussian signal exists at the start of reheating, it will remain non zero at the end of reheating. Unless all isocurvature modes have completely decayed before the start of reheating, we find that the non-linearity parameter, f_NL, can be sensitive to the reheating timescale, and th…
The evolution of the quintessence field during a phase of chaotic inflation is studied. The inflaton and the quintesssence field are described in a supergravity framework where the coupling between the inflaton and quintessence is induced by non-renormalisable operators suppressed by the Planck mass. We show that the resulting quintessence potential during inflation possesses a time--dependent minimum playing the role of an attractor. The presence of this attractor forces the quintessence field to be small during inflation. These initial conditions are such that the quintessence field is on tr…
The curvaton reheating in a tachyonic braneworld inflationary universe model with an exponential potential is studied. We have found that the energy density in the kinetic epoch, has a complicated dependencies of the scale factor. For different scenarios the temperature of reheating is computed, finding an upper limit that lies in the range $10^{14}$--$10^{16}$GeV.
We explore within the context of brane cosmology whether it is possible to obtain both early inflation and accelerated expansion during the present epoch through the dynamics of the same scalar field in an exponential potential. Considerations from successful inflation and viable radiation and matter dominated eras impose constraints on the parameters of the potential. We find that the additional requirement of late time quintessence behaviour in conformity with present observations necessitates the inclusion of two exponential terms in the potential.
In a logamediate inflationary universe model we introduce the curvaton field in order to bring this inflationary model to an end. In this approach we determine the reheating temperature. We also outline some interesting constraints on the parameters that describe our models. Thus, we give the parameter space in this scenario.
The reheating dynamics after the inflation induced by $R^2$-corrected $f(R)$ model is considered. To avoid the complexity of solving the fourth order equations, we analyze the inflationary and reheating dynamics in the Einstein frame and its analytical solutions are derived. We also perform numerical calculation including the backreaction from the particle creation and compare the results with the analytical solutions. Based on the results, observational constraints on the model are discussed.
Recently, a combined model of the primordial inflation and the present cosmic acceleration has been proposed in the context of f(R) gravity. This model is composed of the late-time acceleration term and an R2 term, which enables the model to avoid high curvature singularity and describe a quasi-de Sitter inflationary phase in the early Universe. An interesting feature of this model is that the reheating dynamics after the inflation is significantly modified, in contrast to the original R2 model, and affects the shape of a gravitational wave background (GWB) spectrum. Here we investigate the pr…
In the inflationary scenario all the matter constituting the universe was created from the process of reheating after inflation. Recent development of the theory of reheating is briefly reviewed. The list of topics includes elementary (perturbative) theory of reheating; quantum field theory in a time-varying background; parametric resonance and explosive particle creation; non-thermal phase transitions from reheating; baryogenesis from reheating; residual oscillations of the scalar field, and other cosmological applications.
One of the most important issues in an inflationary theory as standard or quintessential inflation is the mechanism to reheat the universe after the end of the inflationary period in order to match with the Hot Big Bang universe. In quintessential inflation two mechanisms are frequently used, namely the reheating via gravitational particle production which is, as we will see, very efficient when the phase transition from the end of inflation to a kinetic regime (all the energy of the inflaton field is kinetic) is very abrupt, and the so-called instant preheating which is used for a very smooth…
This article investigates the effects of Tree Level Higgs Potential on reheating in $f(Q)$ gravity. We examine the formalism of tree level inflation in a modified $f(Q)$ model, finding that the slow roll and e-folds number during inflation depend on the $f(Q)$ model $α$ parameter. Additionally, we calculate the reheating as a function of the decay rate, constraining the inflationary parameters and reheating temperature. Our study reveals that the Tree Level Higgs Potential influences the reheating temperature and decay rate. We conclude that increasing the decay rate energy leads to higher reh…
An impressed feature of inflation on warped Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) brane is that the inflationary phase exits spontaneously for a scalar inflaton field with exponential potential, which presents a graceful exit mechanism for the inflation. But its reheating mechanism leaves open. We investigate the curvaton reheating in inflation on warped DGP brane model. The reheating may occur in effctively 5 dimensional or 4 dimensional stage. We study the permitted parameter space of the curvaton field in detail. We demonstrate how the inflation model of the warped DGP brane is improved by the curv…
The curvaton reheating in a tachyonic inflationary universe model with an exponential potential is studied. We have found that the energy density in the kinetic epoch, has a complicated dependencies of the scale factor. For different scenarios, the temperature of reheating is computed. These temperature result to be analogous to those obtained in the standard case of the curvaton scenario.
We investigate the cosmological perturbation of two-scalar field model during the reheating phase after inflation. Using the exact solution of the perturbation in long-wavelength limit, which is expressed in terms of the background quantities, we analyze the behavior of the metric perturbation. The oscillating inflaton field gives rise to the parametric resonance of the massless scalar field and this leads to the amplification of the iso-curvature mode of the metric perturbations.
Phase-plane stability analysis of a dynamical system describing the Universe as a two-fraction fluid containing baryonic dust and real virial gas quintessence is presented. Existence of a stable periodic solution experiencing inflationary periods is shown. A van der Waals quintessence model is revisited and cyclic Universe solution again found.
In this paper, with the presence of swampland conjecture, we use the complex form of a scalar field and investigate the anisotropic constant-roll of an inflationary scenario. Recently, the complex quintessence field has been used to describe the accelerating expansion of the universe which has had interesting results connecting with various conditions. Therefore, the Lagrangian density of the quintessence field leads to obtaining the equations of the complex scalar field. Also, we use the anisotropic constant-roll conditions and the field equation and calculate the exact solutions for some cos…
We study the cosmological particle creation in the tachyon inflation based on the D-brane dynamics in the RSII model extended to include matter in the bulk. The presence of matter modifies the warp factor which results in two effects: a modification of the RSII cosmology and a modification of the tachyon potential. Besides, a string theory D-brane supports among other fields a U(1) gauge field reflecting open strings attached to the brane. We demonstrate how the interaction of the tachyon with the U(1) gauge field drives cosmological creation of massless particles and estimate the resulting re…
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…
We investigate a new possible solution to the Hubble constant tension. we propose a simple resolution to the problem assuming that a first-order phase transition related to H0 transition occurred in the early Universe. The early evolution of the Universe is a result of hybrid inflation that has lasted for a specific period until symmetry breaking takes place. Fitting our model to measurements from Planck and SH0ES data provides a key explanation of discrepancies of H0 measurements. The quantum fluctuations calculated in this model have significant results on the reheating parameters Nre and Tr…
Among primordial magnetogenesis models, inflation is a prime candidate to explain the current existence of cosmological magnetic fields. Assuming conformal invariance to be restored after inflation, their energy density decreases as radiation during the decelerating eras of the universe, and in particular during reheating. Without making any assumptions on inflation, on the magnetogenesis mechanism and on how the reheating proceeded, we show that requiring large scale magnetic fields to remain subdominant after inflation gives non-trivial constraints on both the reheating equation of state par…
Inflation has long been the accepted paradigm for understanding the early universe. Most models of inflation have a scalar field acting as the inflaton particle which decays after inflation during a process called reheating into standard model (SM) particles. In this work, we consider a fermion as the inflaton field. Noether symmetry arguments show that an exponentially expanding universe is possible with a fermion if it is coupled non-minimally to gravity. We use such a scenario in this model to study both inflation and reheating. We find relations between the various parameters involved in t…
The robustness of multi-field inflation to the physics of reheating is investigated. In order to carry out this study, reheating is described in detail by means of a formalism which tracks the evolution of scalar fields and perfect fluids in interaction (the inflatons and their decay products). This framework is then used to establish the general equations of motion of the background and perturbative quantities controlling the evolution of the system during reheating. Next, these equations are solved exactly by means of a new numerical code. Moreover, new analytical techniques, allowing us to …
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…
We investigate density perturbations generated through modulated reheating while inflation is driven by a conformally coupled scalar field. A large running of the spectral index is obtained, which reflects the basic nature of conformal inflation that higher-order time derivatives of the Hubble parameter during inflation are not necessarily small. This feature may allow us to distinguish between conformal inflation models and standard minimally coupled ones. We also investigate how the resulting fluctuations are modified when there is a deviation from an exact conformal coupling between the inf…
We present a simple formula that allows to calculate the value of the inflaton field, denoted by $ϕ$, at the scale with wavenumber mode $k$. In the extreme case of instantaneous reheating $ϕ_k$ is calculated exactly and all inflationary observables and quantities of interest follow. This formula, together with the fact that the scale factor $a_p$ at the pivot scale wavenumber $k_p=0.05/Mpc$ lies in the radiation era, allows the development of a diagrammatic approach to study the evolution of the universe. This scheme is complementary to the usual analytical method and some interesting results,…
Inflationary reheating via resonant production of non-minimally coupled scalar particles with only gravitational coupling is shown to be extremely strong, exhibiting a negative coupling instability for $ξ< 0$ and a wide resonance decay for $ξ\gg 1$. Since non-minimal fields are generic after renormalisation in curved spacetime, this offers a new paradigm in reheating - one which naturally allows for efficient production of the massive bosons needed for GUT baryogenesis. We also show that both vector and tensor fields are produced resonantly during reheating, extending the previously known corr…
We investigate the inflationary predictions of a simple Horndeski theory where the inflaton scalar field has a non-minimal derivative coupling (NMDC) to the Einstein tensor. The NMDC is very motivated for the construction of successful models for inflation, nevertheless its inflationary predictions are not observationally distinct. We show that it is possible to probe the effects of the NMDC on the CMB observables by taking into account both the dynamics of the inflationary slow-roll phase and the subsequent reheating. We perform a comparative study between representative inflationary models w…
With the growing consensus on simple power law inflation models not being favored by the PLANCK observations, dynamics for the non-standard inflation gain significant interest in the recent past. In this paper, we analyze in detail a class of supergravity inspired phenomenological inflationary models with non-polynomial potential based on Maity (Nucl.Phys. B919 (2017) 560), and compare the model predictions with the currently most favored Starobinsky and its generalized $α$-attractor models in the ($n_s$ , $r$) plane constrained by PLANCK. Importantly for a wide range of parameter space, our m…
We consider the 3-form field, which has been considered as a candidate for realizing inflation, coupled to a scalar field which models the relativistic matter particles produced during the reheating epoch. We have investigated the stability conditions for this theory and found that introducing such a coupling does not lead to any ghosts or Laplacian instabilities. We have also investigated the reheating temperature and the production of particles due to parametric resonances. We have found that this process is more efficient in this theory compared to the result of the standard-scalar-field in…
