2003/07/18 by Edward W. Kolb, Alessio Notari, Antonio Riotto · 5 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.68.123505
published as Phys.Rev. D68 (2003) 123505 · 8 pages, 2 figures. Submitted for publication in Phys. Rev. D
arxiv created 2003/07/18 · openalex publication_date 2003/12/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We point out that inflaton decay products acquire plasma masses during the reheating phase following inflation. The plasma masses may render inflaton decay kinematically forbidden, causing the temperature to remain frozen for a period at a plateau value. We show that the final reheating temperature may be uniquely determined by the inflaton mass, and may not depend on its coupling. Our findings have important implications for the thermal production of dangerous relics during reheating (e.g., gravitinos), for extracting bounds on particle physics models of inflation from cosmic microwave background anisotropy data, for the production of massive dark matter candidates during reheating, and for models of baryogenesis or leptogenesis where massive particles are produced during reheating.