2002/12/31 by Prashanth Jaikumar, Anupam Mazumdar
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #astro-ph #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2004.02.015
published as Nucl.Phys. B683 (2004) 264-276 · shortened version (8 pages), modified discussion of hadronization, conclusion unchanged, references added
arxiv created 2003/05/29 · openalex publication_date 2004/02/21 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study thermalization of the early Universe when the inflaton can decay into the Standard Model (SM) quarks and gluons, using QCD arguments. We describe the possible formation of the thermal plasma of soft gluons and quarks well before the completion of reheating. Relevant interaction rates of leading order processes and the corresponding thermalization time scale is presented. We discuss hadronization while thermalizing the decay products of the inflaton, when the reheat temperature of the Universe is below the QCD phase transition but above the temperature of the Big Bang nucleosynthesis.