2012/12/31 by Kyohei Mukaida, Kazunori Nakayama · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Cosmological perturbation theory #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dissipation #Dissipative system #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Inflation (cosmology) #Inflaton #Particle (ecology) #Plasma #Thermal #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2013/03/002
published as JCAP03(2013)002 · 22 pages, 3 figures; v2: minor changes to reflect the published version
openalex publication_date 2013/03/01 · arxiv created 2013/03/03 · arxiv updated 2013/03/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
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 reheating temperature is significantly affected by these effects.