We consider natural inflation in a warm inflation framework with a temperature-dependent dissipative coefficient $Γ\propto T^3$. Natural inflation can be compatible with the Planck 2018 results with such warm assistance. With no a priori assumptions on the dissipative effect's magnitude, we find that the Planck results prefer a weak dissipative regime for our benchmark scale $f=5 M_{\rm pl}$, which lies outside the $2σ$ region in the cold case. The inflation starts in the cold regime and evolves with a growing thermal fluctuation that dominates over quantum fluctuation before the end of the inflation. The observed spectral tilt puts stringent constraints on the model's parameter space. We find that $f< 1 M_{\rm pl}$ is excluded. A possible origin of such dissipative coefficient from axion-like coupling to gauge fields and tests of the model are also discussed.
We derive the requirements that a generic axion-like field has to satisfy in order to play the role of the inflaton field in the warm inflation scenario. Compared to the parameter space in ordinary natural inflation models, we find that the parameter space in our model is enlarged. In particular, we avoid the problem of having an axion decay constant $f$ that relates to the Planck scale, which is instead present in the ordinary natural inflation models; in fact, our model can easily accommodate values of the axion decay constant that lie well below the Planck scale.
We study the effects of primordial magnetic fields on the inflationary potential in the context of a warm inflation scenario. The model, based on global supersymmetry with a new-inflation-type potential and a coupling between the inflaton and a heavy intermediate superfield, is already known to preserve the flatness required for slow-roll conditions even after including thermal contributions. Here we show that the magnetic field makes the potential even flatter, retarding the transition and rendering it smoother.
If a homogeneous field evolves within a medium, with the latter gradually picking up a temperature, then the friction felt by the field depends on how its evolution rate compares with medium time scales. We suggest a framework which permits to incorporate the contributions from all medium time scales. As an example, we illustrate how warm axion inflation can be described by inputting the retarded pseudoscalar correlator of a thermal Yang-Mills plasma. Adopting a semi-realistic model for the latter, and starting the evolution at almost vanishing temperature, we show how the system heats up and …
We present preliminary results on the possible effects that primordial magnetic fields can have for a warm inflation scenario, based on global supersymmetry, with a new-inflation-type potential. This work is motivated by two considerations: first, magnetic fields seem to be present in the universe on all scales, which rises the possibility that they could also permeate the early universe; second, the recent emergence of inflationary models where the inflaton is not assumed to be isolated but instead it is taken as an interacting field, even during the inflationary expansion. The effects of mag…
We study the dynamics and observational predictions of warm inflation within a supersymmetric distributed mass model. This dissipative mechanism is well described by the interactions between the inflaton and a tower of chiral multiplets with a mass gap, such that different bosonic and fermionic fields become light as the inflaton scans the tower during inflation. We examine inflation for various mass distributions, analyzing in detail the dynamics and observational predictions. We show, in particular, that warm inflation can be consistently realized in this scenario for a broad parametric rang…
In this paper, we consider a scenario of spontaneous baryogenesis in a framework of warm quintessential inflation where the residual inflaton field, left out after warm inflation, plays the role of quintessence field at late times and is coupled to a non-conserved baryonic current. Assuming a four fermion $(B-L)$ violating effective interaction, we have demonstrated that the required baryon asymmetry can be produced successfully in this case. We show that the post-inflationary evolution, with the underlying scalar field potential, $V(ϕ)=V^4_0 \exp{(-αϕ^n/M_{\rm Pl}^4 ) }$, $n>1$ well suited to…
The amplitude of primordial curvature perturbations is enhanced when a radiation bath at a temperature T>H is sustained during inflation by dissipative particle production, which is particularly significant when a non-trivial statistical ensemble of inflaton fluctuations is also maintained. Since gravitational modes are oblivious to dissipative dynamics, this generically lowers the tensor-to-scalar ratio and yields a modified consistency relation for warm inflation, as well as changing the tilt of the scalar spectrum. We show that this alters the landscape of observationally allowed inflationa…
Ideas borrowed from renormalization group are applied to warm inflation to characterize the inflationary epoch in terms of flows away from the de Sitter regime. In this framework different models of inflation fall into universality classes. Furthermore, for warm inflation this approach also helps to characterise when inflation can smoothly end into the radiation dominated regime. Warm inflation has a second functional dependence compared to cold inflation due to dissipation, yet despite this feature, it is shown that the universality classes defined for cold inflation can be consistently exten…
We review the main aspects of the warm inflation scenario, focusing on the inflationary dynamics and the predictions related to the primordial spectrum of perturbations, to be compared with the recent cosmological observations. We study in detail three different classes of inflationary models, chaotic, hybrid models and hilltop models, and discuss their embedding into supersymmetric models and the consequences for model building of the warm inflationary dynamics based on first principles calculations. Due to the extra friction term introduced in the inflaton background evolution generated by t…
Warm inflation, its different particle physics model implementations and the implications of dissipative particle production for its cosmology are reviewed. First, we briefly present the background dynamics of warm inflation and contrast it with the cold inflation picture. An exposition of the space of parameters for different well-motivated potentials, which are ruled out, or severely constrained in the cold inflation scenario, but not necessarily in warm inflation, is provided. Next, the quantum field theory aspects in realizing explicit microscopic models for warm inflation are given. This …
Warm inflation is an inflationary scenario in which a thermal bath coexists with the inflaton during inflation. This is unlike standard cold inflation in which the Universe is effectively devoid of particles during inflation. The thermal bath in warm inflation is maintained by the dissipation of the inflaton's energy through its couplings to other fields. Many models of warm inflation have been proposed and their predictions have been compared with cosmological data. Certain models of inflation that are disallowed in the context of cold inflation by the data are allowed in the warm inflationar…
A seemingly simple question, how does warm inflation exit gracefully?, has a more complex answer than in a cold paradigm. It has been highlighted here that whether warm inflation exits gracefully depends on three independent choices: The form of the potential, the choice of the warm inflation model (i.e., on the form of its dissipative coefficient) and the regime, of weak or strong dissipation, characterizing the warm inflation dynamics. Generic conditions on slow-roll parameters and several constraints on the different model parameters required for warm inflation to exit gracefully are derive…
The axion is a well-motivated candidate for the inflaton, as the radiative corrections that spoil many single-field models are avoided by virtue of its shift symmetry. However, axions generically couple to gauge sectors. As the axion slow-rolls during inflation, this coupling can cause the production of a non-diluting thermal bath, a situation known as "warm inflation." This thermal bath can dramatically alter inflationary dynamics and observable predictions. In this paper, we demonstrate that a thermal bath can form for a wide variety of initial conditions. Furthermore, we find that axion inf…
We give a generic argument that string theory provides a natural setting for warm inflationary cosmology. We then explore a specific model with an inflaton modulus field coupled to fields that provide the continuous dissipation needed for warm inflation and argue the results are generic for a large class of models.
We introduce warm quintessential inflation and study it in the weak dissipative regime. We consider the original quintessential inflation model, which approximates quartic chaotic inflation at early times and thawing quartic inverse-power-law quintessence at present. We find that the model successfully accounts for both inflation and dark energy observations, while it naturally reheats the Universe, thereby overcoming a major problem of quintessential inflation model-building.
The microscopic quantum field theory origins of warm inflation dynamics are reviewed. The warm inflation scenario is first described along with its results, predictions and comparison with the standard cold inflation scenario. The basics of thermal field theory required in the study of warm inflation are discussed. Quantum field theory real time calculations at finite temperature are then presented and the derivation of dissipation and stochastic fluctuations are shown from a general perspective. Specific results are given of dissipation coefficients for a variety of quantum field theory inter…
Warm Inflation seems to be the most befitting single-field slow-roll inflation scenario in the context of the recently proposed Swampland Criteria. We investigate the constraints these Swampland Criteria impose on Warm Inflation parameters and show that Warm Inflation is in accordance with both the current cosmological observations and the proposed Swampland Criteria in both weak and strong dissipative regimes depending on the value of the parameter $c$ which limits the slope of the inflaton potential according to the criteria.
We propose a new approach to constant-roll warm inflation as a generalization of constant-roll inflation. Based on the $β$-function formalism, it is shown that constant-roll warm inflation models with a natural end fall into universality classes defined by three different types of $β$-functions, under the assumption that radiation energy density is quasi-stable. Given that warm inflation is completely specified by the $β$-function and dissipation coefficient ratio, we investigate whether or not the inflation can physically be realized for enough number of e-foldings at the background level for…
This paper studies the stability of warm inflationary solutions when the viscous pressure is taken into account. The latter is a very natural and physically motivated ingredient of warm inflation and is seen to widen the stability range of warm inflation. The spectral index parameters, $n_{s}$, $n_{T}$, and their ratio are derived. The corresponding WMAP7 data are used to fix some parameters of the model. Two specific examples are discussed in detail: (i) a potential given by $V(ϕ, T) = v_{1}(ϕ)\, + \, v_{2}(T)$, and (ii) a potential of the form $V(ϕ, T) = α\, v_{1}(ϕ) \, v_{2}(T)$. In both ca…
This paper considers warm inflation as an interesting application of multi-field inflation. Delta-N formalism is used for the calculation of the evolution of the curvature perturbations during warm inflation. Although the perturbations considered in this paper are decaying after the horizon exit, the corrections to the curvature perturbations sourced by these perturbations can remain and dominate the curvature perturbations at large scales. In addition to the typical evolution of the curvature perturbations, inhomogeneous diffusion rate is considered for warm inflation, which may lead to signi…
Warm inflation is, as of today, one of the best motivated mechanisms for explaining an early inflationary period. In this paper, we derive and analyze the current bounds on warm inflation with a monomial potential $U\propto ϕ^p$, using the constraints from the PLANCK mission. In particular, we discuss the parameter space of the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ and the potential coupling $λ$ of the monomial warm inflation in terms of the number of e-folds. We obtain that the theoretical tensor-to-scalar ratio $r\sim 10^{-8}$ is much smaller than the current observational constrain $r \lesssim 0.12$, …
We consider warm inflation with a Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term in which both the nonequilibrium dissipative particle production and the sound speed parameter slow the motion of the inflaton field. We find that a low sound speed parameter removes, or at least strongly suppresses, the growing function appearing in the scalar of curvature power spectrum of warm inflation, which appears due to the temperature dependence in the dissipation coefficient. As a consequence of that, a low sound speed helps to push warm inflation into the strong dissipation regime, which is an attractive regime f…
The warm inflation paradigm considers the continuous production of radiation during inflation due to dissipative effects. In its strong dissipation limit, warm inflation gives way to a radiation dominated Universe. High scale inflation then yields a high reheating temperature, which then poses a severe gravitino overproduction problem for the supersymmetric realisations of warm inflation. In this paper we show that in certain class of supersymmetric models the dissipative dynamics of the inflaton is such that the field can avoid its complete decay after inflation. In some cases, the residual e…
Thermal fluctuations provide the main source of large scale density perturbations in warm inflationary models of the early universe. For the first time, general results are obtained for the power spectrum in the case when the friction coefficient in the inflaton equation of motion depends on temperature. A large increase in the amplitude of perturbations occurs when the friction coefficient increases with temperature. This has to be taken into account when constructing models of warm inflation. New results are also given for the thermal fluctuations in the weak regime of warm inflation when th…
The theory and methodology is developed to compute the bispectrum in warm inflation, leading to results for the non-linearity parameter and the shape of the bispectrum. Particular attention is paid to the study of the bispectrum in the regime of weak dissipation and how stochastic fluctuations affect the bispectrum. It is shown that, in contrast to the strong dissipative regime, the amplitude of non-Gaussianity is strongly dependent on the parameters governing the microscopic physics in the intermediate and weak dissipation warm inflation regimes. The most important results concern the shape o…
Warm inflation has been noted previously as a possible way to implement inflationary models compatible with the dS swampland bounds. But often in these discussions the heat bath dynamics is kept largely unspecified. We point out that the recently introduced Minimal Warm Inflation of arXiv:1910.07525, where an axionic coupling of the inflaton leads to an explicit model for the thermal bath, yields models of inflation that can easily fit cosmological observations while satisfying de Sitter swampland bounds, as well as the swampland distance bound and trans-Planckian censorship.
Warm inflation is analyzed in the context of Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC). The bounce in LQC provides a mean through which a Liouville measure can be defined, which has been used previously to characterize the a priori probability for inflation in LQC. Here we take advantage of the tools provided by LQC to study instead the a priori probability for warm inflation dynamics in the context of a monomial quartic inflaton potential. We study not only the question of how a general warm inflation dynamics can be realized in LQC with an appropriate number of e-folds, but also how such dynamics is cons…
The "de Sitter constraint" on the space of effective scalar field theories consistent with superstring theory provides a lower bound on the slope of the potential of a scalar field which dominates the evolution of the Universe, e.g., a hypothetical inflaton field. Whereas models of single scalar field inflation with a canonically normalized field do not obey this constraint, it has been claimed recently in the literature that models of warm inflation can be made compatible with it in the case of large dissipation. The de Sitter constraint is known to be derived from entropy considerations. Sin…
We study a warm inflationary model for different expansions assuming an anisotropic universe described by Bianchi I metric. The universe is filled with a scalar field or inflaton, radiation, and bulk viscous pressure. We carry out the inflationary analysis for different solutions of such universe in two different cases of the bulk viscosity coefficient $ξ$ and the dissipation coefficient $Γ$ as constant and variable parameters, respectively. We compare the obtained results with the recent observations, in order to find the observational constraints on the parameters space of the models. Moreov…
We propose and investigate a general form of the dissipative coefficient $Γ=C_ϕT^{m}/ϕ^{m-1}$ in warm inflation. We focus on discussing the strong dissipative processes $r=Γ/3H\gg1$ in the thermal state of approximate equilibrium. To this toy model, we give the slow-roll conditions, the amplitude and the index of the power spectrum under the general form of dissipative coefficient. Furthermore, the monomial potential and the hybrid-like potential are analyzed specifically. We conclude that the $m=0,3$ cases are worthy further investigation especially.
Stochastic gravitational waves can be induced from the primordial curvature perturbations generated during inflation, through scalar-tensor mode coupling at the second order of cosmological perturbation theory. Here we discuss a model of warm inflation in which large curvature perturbations are generated at the small scales because of inflaton dissipation. These overdense perturbations then collapse at later epoch to form primordial black holes, as was studied in our earlier work (Ref. \cite{Arya:2019wck}), and therefore may also act as a source to the second-order tensor perturbations. In thi…
Using Hamilton-Jacobi formalism, The scenario of warm inflation with viscous pressure is considered. The formalism gives a way of computing the slow-rolling parameters without extra approximation, and it is well-known as a powerful method in cold inflation. The model is studied in detail for three different cases of dissipation and bulk viscous pressure coefficients. In the first case where both coefficients are taken as a constant, it is shown that the case could not portray warm inflationary scenario compatible with observational data even it is possible to restrict the model parameters. For…
The minimal warm inflation model was constructed as a warm inflation setup with direct interaction between inflaton and (non-Abelian) gauge fields. The model was shown to be compatible with observation for some forms of potential. As a result of direct analysis of CMB data, the model presents a reasonable phase-space of its parameter compatible with observation and the Trans-planckian censorship conjecture (TCC).
We propose a warm inflationary model in the context of relativistic D-brane inflation in a warped throat, which has Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term and is coupled to radiation through a dissipation term. The perturbation freezes at the sound horizon and the power spectrum is determined by a combination of the dissipative parameter and the sound speed parameter. The thermal dissipation ameliorates the {\it eta} problem and softens theoretical constraints from the extra-dimensional volume and from observational bounds on the tensor-to-scalar ratio. The warm DBI model can lead to appreciable…
We compute the spectrum of tensor perturbations in warm inflation. We find that the spectrum, besides the standard component $\propto {H^2}/{M_P^2}$ associated to the amplification of the tensor vacuum fluctuations, acquires a component $\propto {\ell_{\rm mfp}\,T^5}/{M_P^4}$, where $\ell_{\rm mfp}$ and $T$ are respectively the mean free path and the temperature of the thermal degrees of freedom. The new contribution is due to the direct production of gravitational waves by the thermal bath, and can exceed the standard one in a viable region of parameter space. This contribution is dominated b…
The bispectrum of scalar mode density perturbations is analysed for the strong regime of warm inflationary models. This analysis generalises previous results by allowing damping terms in the inflaton equation of motion that are dependent on temperature. A significant amount of non-gaussianity emerges with constant (or local) non-linearity parameter $f_{NL}\sim 20$, in addition to the terms with non-constant $f_{NL}$ which are characteristic of warm inflation.
We revisit the constraints that Planck 2015 temperature, polarization and lensing data impose on the parameters of warm inflation. To this end, we study warm inflation driven by a single scalar field with a quartic self interaction potential in the weak dissipative regime. We analyse the effect of the parameters of warm inflation, namely, the inflaton self coupling $λ$ and the inflaton dissipation parameter $Q_P$ on the CMB angular power spectrum. We constrain $λ$ and $Q_P$ for 50 and 60 number of e-foldings with the full Planck 2015 data (TT, TE, EE + lowP and lensing) by performing a Markov-…
There are many flat directions in SUSY models, which may dissipate their energy and source the radiation background during inflation. However, the only possibility that has been studied in this direction is warm inflation, which uses "warm" (or "dissipative" if we consider more modest situation) direction as the inflaton. In this talk we discuss other significant possibilities of such directions which are dissipative and may or may not be "warm". Affleck-Dine (AD) mechanism and other cosmological scenarios are discussed in the light of "dissipative field", instead of using the conventional lig…
The implications of the recently proposed Trans-Planckian censorship conjecture (TCC) are analyzed in the context of warm inflation. It is found that for a single-stage accelerated expansion the constraints imposed by the censorship are roughly the same as for cold inflation. Next, we study how a two-stage inflationary expansion with an intermediate radiation-dominated era can alleviate the bounds imposed by the censorship. For a demonstrative toy model we found $r<10^{-23}$, but can be $r<10^{-5}$ for a weaker form of TCC for the later stages of expansion, while still satisfying the other swa…
We obtain conditions for the existence of an attractor in the system of equations describing a tachyon warm inflationary model with bulk viscosity taken into account. When these conditions are met the evolution approaches slow-roll regime. We present the primordial power spectrum for the tachyon field by considering a dissipation coefficient depending on the scalar field and temperature.
We investigate theoretical and observational aspects of a warm inflation scenario driven by the $β$-exponential potential, which generalizes the well-known power law inflation. In such a scenario, the decay of the inflaton field into radiation happens during the inflationary phase. In our study, we consider a dissipation coefficient ($Γ$) with cubic dependence on the temperature ($T$) and investigate the consequences in the inflationary dynamics, focusing on the impact on the spectral index $n_s$, its running $n_{run}$ and tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$. We find it possible to realize inflation in…
We discuss how dissipative effects and the presence of a thermal radiation bath, which are inherent characteristics of the warm inflation dynamics, can evade the recently proposed Swampland conjectures. Different forms of dissipation terms, motivated by both microphysical quantum field theory and phenomenological models, are discussed and their viability to overcome the assumed Swampland constraints is analyzed.
University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；University of Lethbridge（莱斯布里奇大学）；Indian Statistical Institute（印度统计研究所）；University of Sussex（萨塞克斯大学）；Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro（里约热内卢州立大学）；Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）
We study the two-field warm inflation models with a double quadratic potential and a linear temperature dependent dissipative coefficient. We derived the evolution equation of all kinds of perturbations without assuming slow-roll approximation, and obtained the curvature power spectrum at the end of inflation with a fully numerical method. Then we compute the scalar spectral index $n_s$, tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ for several representative potentials, and compare our results with observational data. At last, we use Planck data to constrain the parameters in our models. This work is a natural …
We show that, in warm inflation, the nearly constant Hubble rate and temperature lead to an adiabatic evolution of the number density of particles interacting with the thermal bath, even if thermal equilibrium cannot be maintained. In this case, the number density is suppressed compared to the equilibrium value but the associated phase-space distribution retains approximately an equilibrium form, with a smaller amplitude and a slightly smaller effective temperature. As an application, we explicitly construct a baryogenesis mechanism during warm inflation based on the out-of-equilibrium decay o…
