2008/12/31 by Philippe Brax, Carsten van de Bruck, Lisa M. Hall +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.79.103508
published as Phys.Rev.D79:103508,2009 · 15 pages, 7 figures; added references and a more detailed treatment of the perturbation equations (Sec. II.B and fig.1)
openalex publication_date 2009/05/08 · arxiv created 2009/05/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In models of coupled dark energy, in which a dark energy scalar field couples to other matter components, it is natural to expect a coupling to the inflaton as well. We explore the consequences of such a coupling in the context of single-field slow-roll inflation. Assuming an exponential potential for the quintessence field we show that the coupling to the inflaton causes the quintessence field to be attracted toward the minimum of the effective potential. If the coupling is large enough, the field is heavy and is located at the minimum. We show how this affects the expansion rate and the slow-roll of the inflaton field, and therefore the primordial perturbations generated during inflation. We further show that the coupling has an important impact on the processes of reheating and preheating.