We investigate gravitational reheating in the Starobinsky model in the Jordan frame, where inflation is driven by an $R^2$ modification of gravity with no explicit inflaton field. In this description, reheating proceeds exclusively through gravitational particle production triggered by the oscillations of the Ricci scalar after the end of inflation. We analyze the post-inflationary background evolution and show that an effective fluid emerging from the modified gravitational dynamics behaves as pressureless matter during the oscillatory phase. Including the backreaction of the produced particles, we demonstrate that the Ricci scalar oscillations acquire an exponential damping, consistently terminating particle production. Solving the coupled background and Boltzmann equations, we obtain a reheating temperature $T_{\mathrm{reh}} \sim 2 \times 10^{9}$ GeV. We finally compare the Jordan and Einstein frame descriptions and argue that, although classically equivalent, they can lead to distinct microphysical interpretations and quantitative predictions for reheating once quantum effects are taken into account.
The Preheating Stage on The Starobinsky Inflation after ACT
Research Center for Quantum Physics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN)（量子物理研究中心，国家研究与创新署（BRIN））；Dept. of Physics Education, Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga（苏南卡利贾加伊斯兰大学物理教育系）；Physics Department, Universitas Gadjah Mada（加查马达大学物理系）
The relation between the reheating temperature, the number of e-folds and the spectral index is shown for the Starobinsky model and some of its descendants through a very detailed calculation of these three quantities. The conclusion is that for viable temperatures between $1$ MeV and $10^9$ GeV the corresponding values of the spectral index enter perfectly in its $2sigma$ C.L., which shows the viability of this kind of models.
We study reheating processes and its cosmological consequences in the Starobinsky model embedded in the old-minimal supergravity. First, we consider minimal coupling between the gravity and matter sectors in the higher curvature theory, and transform it to the equivalent standard supergravity coupled to additional matter superfields. We then discuss characteristic decay modes of the inflaton and the reheating temperature $T_{\rm R}$. Considering a simple model of supersymmetry breaking sector, we estimate gravitino abundance from inflaton decay, and obtain limits on the masses of gravitino and…
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 revisit the problem of generality of Starobinsky and Higgs inflation. The known results obtained in the Einstein frame are generalized for the case of an arbitrary initial energy of the scalar field. These results are compared with the results obtained directly in the Jordan frame, which, to our knowledge, has not been thoroughly explored in the literature previously. We demonstrate that the qualitative picture of initial conditions zone in the $(ϕ, \dot ϕ)$ plane, which leads to sufficient amount of inflation, is quite similar for both the frames in the case of Higgs inflation. For Starobi…
The most current observational data corroborate the Starobinsky model as one of the strongest candidates in the description of an inflationary regime. Motivated by such success, extensions of the Starobinsky model have been increasingly recurrent in the literature. The theoretical justification for this is well grounded: higher-order gravities arise in high-energy physics in the search for the ultraviolet completeness of general relativity. In this paper, we propose to investigate the inflation due to the extension of the Starobinsky model characterized by the inclusion of the $R^{3}$ term. We…
We embed a flipped ${\rm SU}(5) \times {\rm U}(1)$ GUT model in a no-scale supergravity framework, and discuss its predictions for cosmic microwave background observables, which are similar to those of the Starobinsky model of inflation. Measurements of the tilt in the spectrum of scalar perturbations in the cosmic microwave background, $n_s$, constrain significantly the model parameters. We also discuss the model's predictions for neutrino masses, and pay particular attention to the behaviours of scalar fields during and after inflation, reheating and the GUT phase transition. We argue in fav…
Starobinsky Inflation in k-Essence Framework: Attractor Dynamics, Reheating, and Consistency with ACT DR6
Hunan Institute of Technology（湖南工学院）；SGT University（SGT大学）；Centre for Cosmology and Science Popularization (CCSP), SGT University（SGT大学宇宙学与科学普及中心）；Eurasian International Centre for Theoretical Physics（欧亚国际理论物理中心）
We point out that in the large field regime, the recently proposed superconformal D-term inflation model coincides with the Starobinsky model. In this regime, the inflaton field dominates over the Planck mass in the gravitational kinetic term in the Jordan frame. Slow-roll inflation is realized in the large field regime for sufficiently large gauge couplings. The Starobinsky model generally emerges as an effective description of slow-roll inflation if a Jordan frame exists where, for large inflaton field values, the action is scale invariant and the ratio \hat λ of the inflaton self-coupling a…
In this work, we study unified picture of inflation and dark matter in the Higgs-Starobinsky (HS) model. As pointed out in the literature, Starobinsky $R^2$ inflation is induced by quantum correction effect from the large Higgs-curvature (graviton) coupling. We start with non-minimal coupling HS action in Jordan frame. We then transform the Jordan frame action into the Einstein one using the conformal transformation. The inflation potential is derived from the gravitational action of non-minimal-Higgs coupling and Starobinsky term in Einstein frame where the $R^2$ term is dominated in the infl…
Using a no-scale supergravity framework, we construct an SO(10) model that makes predictions for cosmic microwave background observables similar to those of the Starobinsky model of inflation, and incorporates a double-seesaw model for neutrino masses consistent with oscillation experiments and late-time cosmology. We pay particular attention to the behaviour of the scalar fields during inflation and the subsequent reheating.
Distinguishing conformally coupled frames from the tree-level perturbative observables (scalar spectral index $n_{\rm s}$ and tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$) is challenging in cosmology as they are nearly identical. However, since the background evolution in these two frames differs significantly, we can look for potential signatures in the reheating constraints to discriminate these frames. In this work, we study the reheating phase in these frames and find that the difference in the inflationary energy scales in these frames contributes to a significant difference in the reheating e-folding numb…
Testing the Starobinsky model of inflation with resonant cavities
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur（坎普尔印度理工学院）；Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal（博帕尔印度科学教育与研究机构）；Indian Institute of Technology Bombay（孟买印度理工学院）
We single out the Starobinsky model and its extensions among generic $f(R)$ gravity as attractors at large field values for chaotic inflation. Treating a $R^3$ curvature term as a perturbation of the Starobinsky model, we impose the phenomenological bounds on the additional term satisfying the successful inflationary predictions. We find that the scalar spectral index can vary in both the red or blue tilted direction, depending on the sign of the coefficient of the $R^3$ term, whereas the tensor-to-scalar ratio is less affected in the Planck-compatible region. We also discuss the role of highe…
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 explore two saddle point inflationary scenarios in the context of higher order corrections related to different generalisations of general relativity. Firstly, we deal with Jordan frame Starobinsky potential, for which we identify a portion of a parameter space of inflection point inflation, which can accommodate all the experimental results. Secondly, we analyse Higgs inflation and more specifically the influence of non-renormalisible terms on the standard quartic potential. All results were verified with the PLANCK 2015 data.
We study inflation induced by (power-low) scalar curvature corrections to General Relativity. The class of inflationary scalar potentials $V(σ)\sim\exp[n\,σ]$, $n$ general parameter, is investigated in the Einsein frame and the corresponding actions in the Jordan frame are derived. We found the conditions for which these potentials are able to reproduce viable inflation according with the last cosmological data and lead to large scalar curvature corrections which emerge only at a mass scale larger than the Planck mass. Cosmological constant may appear or be set equal to zero in the Jordan fram…
We point out that the ability of some models of inflation, such as Higgs inflation and the universal attractor models, in reproducing the available data is due to their relation to the Starobinsky model of inflation. For large field values, where the inflationary phase takes place, all these classes of models are indeed identical to the Starobinsky model. Nevertheless, the inflaton is just an auxiliary field in the Jordan frame of the Starobinsky model and this leads to two important consequences: first, the inflationary predictions of the Starobinsky model and its descendants are slightly dif…
We investigate a form of $ f(R) = {R^{1+δ}}/{R_c^δ}$ and study the viability of the model for inflation in the Jordan and the Einstein frames. This model is further analysed by using the power spectrum indices of the inflation and the reheating temperature. During the inflationary evolution, the model predicts a value of $δ$ parameter very close to one ($δ=0.98$), while the reheating temperature $T_{re} \sim 10^{17}$ GeV at $δ=0.98$ is consistent with the standard approach to inflation and observations. We calculate the slow roll parameters for the minimally coupled scalar field within the fra…
We study the evolution of Gravitational Waves (GWs) during and after inflation as well as the resulting observational consequences in a Lorentz-violating massive gravity theory with one scalar (inflaton) and two tensor degrees of freedom. We consider two explicit examples of the tensor mass $m_g$ that depends either on the inflaton field $ϕ$ or on its time derivative $\dotϕ$, both of which lead to parametric excitations of GWs during reheating after inflation. The first example is Starobinsky's $R^2$ inflation model with a $ϕ$-dependent $m_g$ and the second is a low-energy-scale inflation mode…
A Global Overview of Starobinsky Inflation beyond slow-roll with CMB-BAO data
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Berhampur（印度科学教育研究所贝尔汉普尔分校）；Astronomisches Recheninstitut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg（海德堡大学天文学计算研究所）
We perform the calculation for tree-level ultraviolet unitarity violation scales for scalar-$R^2$ inflation models by including an additional $R^2 |Φ|^2$-type term. Due to certain constraints, we resort to the Einstein frame for our calculations, where we separate our analysis between metric and Palatini formulations. We follow recent works in this line that debunk the naive predictions for unitarity violations in Higgs' inflation models to determine how to accurately estimate the behaviour of scattering amplitudes in the UV limit. Later, we work out different cases by assuming potentials corr…
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…
Tokyo Metropolitan University（东京都立大学）；Tomsk State University（托木斯克国立大学）；Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study（理化学研究所 Kavli 宇宙物理学与数学研究所（WPI），东京大学高等研究院）
For zero spatial curvature, cosmological phase space of Starobinsky and extended Starobinsky inflationary model show three apparent attractors; the fixed angle attractor in the large field limit, the final attractor representing reheating phase in the small field region, and the apparent attractor corresponding to the slow-roll condition connecting between the large-field and small-field region. To consider the total $e$-folding likelihood of the model, Remmen-Carroll conserved measure is constructed and normalized. Using the measure, the total e-folding number $N$ and its expectation value $\…
In the framework of mixed Higgs-Starobinsky inflation, we consider the generation of Abelian gauge fields due to their nonminimal coupling to gravity (in two different formulations of gravity -- metric and Palatini). We couple the gauge-field invariants $F_{μν}F^{μν}$ and $F_{μν}\tilde{F}^{μν}$ to an integer power of the scalar curvature $R^n$ in Jordan frame and, treating these interactions perturbatively, switch to the Einstein frame where they lead to effective kinetic and axial couplings between gauge fields and inflaton. We determine the power spectra, energy densities, correlation length…
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,…
We study a scale-invariant model of quadratic gravity with a non-minimally coupled scalar field. We focus on cosmological solutions and find that scale invariance is spontaneously broken and a mass scale naturally emerges. Before the symmetry breaking, the Universe undergoes an inflationary expansion with nearly the same observational predictions of Starobinsky's model. At the end of inflation, the Hubble parameter and the scalar field converge to a stable fixed point through damped oscillations and the usual Einstein-Hilbert action is recovered. The oscillations around the fixed point can reh…
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…
No-scale supergravity and the flipped SU(5)$\times$U(1) gauge group provide an ambitious prototype string-inspired scenario for physics below the string scale, which can accommodate the Starobinsky-like inflation favoured by observation when the inflaton is associated with one of the singlet fields associated with neutrino mass generation. During inflation, the vacuum remains in the unbroken GUT phase, and GUT symmetry breaking occurs later when a field with a flat direction (the flaton) acquires a vacuum expectation value. Inflaton decay and the reheating process depend crucially on GUT symme…
We study several extensions of the Starobinsky model of inflation, which obey all observational constraints on the inflationary parameters, by demanding that both the inflaton scalar potential in the Einstein frame and the $F(R)$ gravity function in the Jordan frame have the explicit dependence upon fields {\it and} parameters in terms of elementary functions. Our models are continuously connected to the original Starobinsky model via changing the parameters. We modify the Starobinsky $(R+R^2)$ model by adding an $R^3$-term, an $R^4$-term, and an $R^{3/2}$-term, respectively, and calculate the…
We show how to constrain inflationary models and reheating by using mixed constraints. In particular we study the physics of the reheating phase after inflation from observational constraints to the inflationary stage. We show that it is possible to determine $ω$, the equation of state during reheating, by using the reported values of the spectral index and the {\it full} number of $e$-folds $N(n_s,ω)= N_H(n_s)+N_{re}(n_s,w)\approx 60$, which includes the accelerated expansion and the reheating phase. We show that the reheating number of $e$-folds $N_{re}$ is quite sensitive to this equation o…
We study the problem of scalar particle production after inflation by a rapidly oscillating inflaton field. We use the framework of the chaotic inflation scenario with quartic and quadratic inflaton potentials. Particular attention is paid to parametric resonance phenomena which take place in the presence of the quickly oscillating inflaton field. We have found that in the region of applicability of perturbation theory the effects of parametric resonance are crucial, and estimates based on first order Born approximation often underestimate the particle production. In the case of the quartic in…
In Cuzinatto et al. [Phys. Rev. D 93, 124034 (2016)], it has been demonstrated that theories of gravity in which the Lagrangian includes terms depending on the scalar curvature $R$ and its derivatives up to order $n$, i.e. $f\left(R,\nabla_μR,\nabla_{μ_{1}}\nabla_{μ_{2}}R,\dots,\nabla_{μ_{1}}\dots\nabla_{μ_{n}}R\right)$ theories of gravity, are equivalent to scalar-multitensorial theories in the Jordan frame. In particular, in the metric and Palatini formalisms, this scalar-multitensorial equivalent scenario shows a structure that resembles that of the Brans-Dicke theories with a kinetic term …
We consider an extension of Higgs inflation in which the Higgs field is coupled to the Gauss-Bonnet term. Working solely in the Jordan frame, we firstly recover the standard predictions of Higgs inflation without a Gauss-Bonnet term. We then calculate the power spectra for scalar and tensor perturbations in the presence of a coupling to a Gauss-Bonnet term. We show that generically the predictions of Higgs inflation are robust and the contributions to the power spectra coming from the Gauss-Bonnet term are negligible. We find, however, that the end of inflation can be strongly modified and tha…
