We analyze in detail the perturbative decay of the inflaton oscillating about a generic form of its potential $V(ϕ) = ϕ^k$, taking into account the effects of non-instantaneous reheating. We show that evolution of the temperature as a function of the cosmological scale factor depends on the spin statistics of the final state decay products when $k > 2$. We also include the inflaton-induced mass of the final states leading to either kinematic suppression or enhancement if the final states are fermionic or bosonic respectively. We compute the maximum temperature reached after inflation, the subsequent evolution of the temperature and the final reheat temperature. We apply our results to the computation of the dark matter abundance through thermal scattering during reheating. We also provide an example based on supersymmetry for the coupling of the inflaton to matter.
Current Higgs boson and top quark data favor metastability of our vacuum which raises questions as to why the Universe has chosen an energetically disfavored state and remained there during inflation. In this Letter, we point out that these problems can be solved by a Higgs-inflaton coupling which appears in realistic models of inflation. Since an inflaton must couple to the Standard Model particles either directly or indirectly, such a coupling is generated radiatively, even if absent at tree level. As a result, the dynamics of the Higgs field can change dramatically.
We study scalar dark matter production and reheating via renormalizable inflaton couplings, which include both quartic and trilinear interactions. These processes often depend crucially on collective effects such as resonances, backreaction and rescattering of the produced particles. To take them into account, we perform lattice simulations and map out parameter space producing the correct (non-thermal) dark matter density. We find that the inflaton-dark matter system can reach a quasi-equilibrium state during preheating already at very small couplings, in which case the dark matter abundance …
It is shown that perturbative reheating can reach a sufficiently high temperature with small or negligible inflaton decay rate provided that the inflaton potential becomes negative after inflation. In our model, inflaton and dark energy field are two independent scalar fields, and, depending on the mass of the inflaton and its coupling to matter fields, there is a possibility that the remaining inflaton after reheating can become a dark matter candidate.
The inflaton must convert its energy into radiation after inflation, which, in a conventional scenario, is caused by the perturbative inflaton decay. This reheating process would be much more complicated in some cases: the decay products obtain masses from an oscillating inflaton and thermal environment, and hence the conventional reheating scenario can be modified. We study in detail processes of particle production from the inflaton, their subsequent thermalization and evolution of inflaton/plasma system by taking dissipation of the inflaton in a hot plasma into account. It is shown that the…
We analyse the epoch of reheating after an inflationary phase in the Randal Sundrum(RS) Type-$\rm II$ braneworld, where we did not consider any particular model of inflation, but rather reconstructed the inflationary potential solving the flow equations using Monte Carlo (MC) approach. It is shown numerically that a potential conceived through the MC reconstruction technique can be represented by an effective potential as a function of the number of e-foldings($N$). Then, the epoch of reheating is studied for this reconstructed potential. The relation between the reheating temperature ($T_{\rm…
Inflaton Regeneration via Scalar Couplings: Generic Models and the Higgs Portal
Faculty of Education, Niigata University（新潟大学教育学部）；Department of Physics, Saga University（佐贺大学物理学系）；Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saga University（佐贺大学理工学研究科）
We investigate the allowed range of reheating temperature values in light of the Planck 2015 results and the recent joint analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data from the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck experiments, using monomial and binomial inflationary potentials. While the well studied $ϕ^2$ inflationary potential is no longer favored by current CMB data, as well as $ϕ^p$ with $p>2$, a $ϕ^1$ potential and canonical reheating ($w_{re}=0$) provide a good fit to the CMB measurements. In this last case, we find that the Planck 2015 $68\%$ confidence limit upper bound on the spectral i…
We study radiative plateau-like inflation \& Z$_{BL}$-portal freeze-in fermionic dark matter (DM) in a minimal B-L extended model. The U(1)$_{B-L}$ Higgs, responsible for heavy neutrino masses, also drives inflation in the early universe, thanks to radiative corrections from the heavy neutrinos \& the Z$_{BL}$ gauge boson. In our benchmark choice for the U(1)$_{B-L}$ gauge coupling $g_{B-L}\sim10^{-4}$, a light Z$_{BL}$ boson can be explored by current and future lifetime frontier experiments, such as FASER and FASER 2 at the LHC, SHiP, Belle II and LHCb. For the benchmark, the Hubble scale of…
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 reheating process and a lower reheat temperature after inflation. We study the effects on the multiple stages of reheating: resonant particle production (preheating) as well as perturbative decays from coherent oscillations of the inflaton field. Specifically, we study both the cases of the inflaton coupling to Standard Model fermions through Yukawa interacti…
We discuss the production of radiation and dark matter assuming a time-dependent inflaton decay rate during the reheating period. It is shown that the time dependence of the inflaton decay rate can substantially modify the reheating dynamics. As an illustration, a leading interaction between the inflaton $ϕ$ and the Higgs doublet ${\boldsymbol h}$ of the form $ϕ|{\boldsymbol h}|^2$ was adopted. In the presence of such interaction, the Higgs doublet acquires a $ϕ$-dependent mass which generates vacuum-expectation-value due to inflaton oscillations and breaks the Standard Model gauge symmetry. T…
Post-inflationary reheating is a widely discussed mechanism for non-thermal production of dark matter (DM). In this scenario the momentum distribution of the produced DM particles is usually taken to be the one obtained at reheating, red-shifted at later times due to the expansion of the Universe. However, since in such a scenario both the DM and the standard model (SM) fields couple to the inflaton, the DM particles necessarily undergo self-scatterings, as well as elastic and inelastic scattering reactions with the SM bath, all of which proceed through $s-$channel or $t-$channel inflaton exch…
There might be a light scalar field during inflation which is not responsible for the accelerating inflationary expansion. Then, its quantum fluctuation is stretched during inflation. This scalar field could be a curvaton, if it decays at a late time. In addition, if the inflaton decay rate depends on the light scalar field expectation value by interactions between them, density perturbations could be generated by the quantum fluctuation of the light field when the inflaton decays. This is modulated reheating mechanism. We study curvature perturbation in models where a light scalar field does …
We perform a systematic analysis of dark matter production during post-inflationary reheating. Following the period of exponential expansion, the inflaton begins a period of damped oscillations as it decays. These oscillations and the evolution of temperature of the thermalized decay products depend on the shape of the inflaton potential $V(Φ)$. We consider potentials of the form $Φ^k$. Standard matter-dominated oscillations occur for $k=2$. In general, the production of dark matter may depend on either (or both) the maximum temperature after inflation, or the reheating temperature, where the …
We show that the inflaton condensate associated with a global symmetry can fragment into quasi stable Q balls after the end of inflation, provided the inflaton oscillations give rise to an effective equation of state with negative pressure. We argue that chaotic inflation with a running inflaton mass may give rise to the desired scenario where the process of fragmentation into inflatonic Q balls can actually take place even though there is total zero charge. We show that such inflatonic Q balls will reheat the Universe to a sufficiently low temperature via surface evaporation.
We study reheating in $α$-attractor models of inflation in which the inflaton couples to other scalars or fermions. We show that the parameter space contains viable regions in which the inflaton couplings to radiation can be determined from the properties of CMB temperature fluctuations, in particular the spectral index. This may be the only way to measure these fundamental microphysical parameters, which shaped the universe by setting the initial temperature of the hot big bang and contain important information about the embedding of a given model of inflation into a more fundamental theory o…
With the growing consensus on simple power law inflation models not being favored by the PLANCK observation, dynamics for the non-standard form of the inflaton potential gain significant interest in the recent past. In this paper, we analyze in great detail classes of phenomenologically motivated inflationary models with non-polynomial potential which are the generalization of the potential introduced in \cite{mhiggs}. After the end of inflation, inflaton field will coherently oscillate around its minimum. Depending upon the initial amplitude of the oscillation and coupling parameters standard…
In many theories of reheating starting from the classical spatially homogeneous inflaton field, its accompanying inhomogeneous part (which arises from primordial quantum fluctuations) is treated as a first order perturbation. We examine some consequences of treating it non-perturbatively in a model where a first order treatment is invalid. In particular we consider effects on the long-wavelength curvature parameter relevant to the cosmic microwave background fluctuations.
We discuss inflaton decays and reheating in no-scale Starobinsky-like models of inflation, calculating the effective equation-of-state parameter, $w$, during the epoch of inflaton decay, the reheating temperature, $T_{\rm reh}$, and the number of inflationary e-folds, $N_*$, comparing analytical approximations with numerical calculations. We then illustrate these results with applications to models based on no-scale supergravity and motivated by generic string compactifications, including scenarios where the inflaton is identified as an untwisted-sector matter field with direct Yukawa coupling…
The flatness of the inflaton potential and lightness of the Higgs could have the common origin of the breaking of a global symmetry. This scenario provides a unified framework of Goldstone Inflation and Composite Higgs, where the inflaton and the Higgs both have a pseudo--Goldstone boson nature. The inflaton reheats the Universe via decays to the Higgs and subsequent secondary production of other SM particles via the top and massive vector bosons. We find that inflationary predictions and perturbative reheating conditions are consistent with CMB data for sub--Planckian values of the fields, as…
In this paper we study the reheating constraints on inflationary models considering perturbatively decaying inflaton. Important difference with the existing analysis is the inclusion of explicit decaying dynamics of inflaton during reheating. One of the important findings of our analysis is the possible existence of maximum reheating temperature $T_{re}^{max}$ considering perturbative reheating scenario. For all the models under consideration the value of this temperature turned out to be $T_{re}^{max} \sim 10^{15}$ GeV. Corresponding to this value of reheating temperature the duration of rehe…
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.
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the best-motivated dark matter candidates. In the standard scenario where the freeze-out occurs well after the end of inflationary reheating, they are in tension with the severe experimental constraints. Here, we investigate the thermal freeze-out of WIMPs occurring {\it during} reheating, while the inflaton $ϕ$ coherently oscillates in a generic potential $\propto ϕ^n$. Depending on the value of $n$ and the spin of the inflaton decaying products, the evolution of the radiation and inflaton energy densities can show distinct features, ther…
After the release of the PLANCK data, it is evident that inflationary paradigm has stood the test of time. Even though, it is difficult to realise inflationary paradigm in a particle physics model as the present observations have ruled out the simplest quartic and quadratic inflationary potentials, which generically arise in particle physics. We would show that such simplest inflationary potentials can evade discrepancies with observations, if the inflaton field is assisted by another scalar during inflation. Moreover, unlike other multifield models, our model yields no isocurvature perturbati…
We consider the conditions for the decay products of perturbative inflaton decay to thermalize. The importance of considering the full spectrum of inflaton decay products in the thermalization process is emphasized. It is shown that the delay between the end of inflaton decay and thermalization allows the thermal gravitino upper bound on the reheating temperature to be raised from 10^{8} GeV to as much as 10^{12} GeV in realistic inflation models. Requiring that thermalization occurs before nucleosynthesis imposes an upper bound on the inflaton mass as a function of the reheating temperature, …
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 consider the generation of the baryon asymmetry in models with right-handed neutrinos produced through gravitational scattering of the inflaton during reheating. The right-handed neutrinos later decay and generate a lepton asymmetry, which is partially converted to a baryon asymmetry by Standard Model sphaleron processes. We find that a sufficient asymmetry can be generated for a wide range of right-handed neutrino masses and reheating temperatures. We also show that the same type of gravitational scattering produces Standard Model Higgs bosons, which can achieve inflationary reheating cons…
We consider reheating for a charged inflaton which is minimally coupled to electromagnetism. The evolution of such an inflaton induces a time-dependent mass for the photon. We show how the massive photon propagator can be expressed as a spatial Fourier mode sum involving three different sorts of mode functions, just like the constant mass case. We develop accurate analytic approximations for these mode functions, and use them to approximate the effective force exerted on the inflaton $0$-mode. This effective force allows one to simply compute the evolution of the inflaton $0$-mode and to follo…
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations are used to constrain reheating to Standard Model (SM) particles after a period of inflation. As a light spectator field, the SM Higgs boson acquires large field values from its quantum fluctuations during inflation, gives masses to SM particles that vary from one Hubble patch to another, and thereby produces large density fluctuations. We consider both perturbative and resonant decay of the inflaton to SM particles. For the case of perturbative decay from coherent oscillations of the inflaton after high scale inflation, we find strong constraints…
In a class of (pseudoscalar) inflation, inflationary phase is followed by a kination phase, where the Universe is dominated by the kinetic energy of the inflaton that runs away in a vanishing scalar potential. In this class of postinflationary evolution of the Universe, reheating of the Universe cannot be achieved by the inflaton particle decay, which requires its coherent oscillation in a quadratic potential. In this study, we explore the U(1) gauge field production through the Chern-Simons coupling between the pseudoscalar inflaton and the gauge field during the kination era and examine the …
If inflaton couples very weakly to ordinary matter the reheating temperature of the universe can be lower than the electroweak scale. In this letter we show that the late reheating occurs in a highly non-uniform way, within narrow areas along the jets produced by ordinary particles originated from inflaton decays. Depending on inflaton mass and decay constant, the initial temperature inside the lumps of the overheated plasma may be large enough to trigger the unsuppressed sphaleron processes with baryon number non-conservation, allowing for efficient local electroweak baryogenesis.
We analyze reheating scenarios where a hidden sector is populated during reheating along with the sector containing the Standard Model. We numerically solve the Boltzmann equations describing perturbative reheating of the two sectors, including the full dependence on quantum statistics, and study how quantum statistical effects during reheating as well as the non-equilibrium inflaton-mediated energy transfer between the two sectors affects the temperature evolution of the two radiation baths. We obtain new power laws describing the temperature evolution of fermions and bosons when quantum stat…
