Inflaton Oscillations and Post-Inflationary Reheating

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed analysis of inflaton decay and reheating dynamics, including temperature evolution and implications for dark matter, considering various potential forms and particle statistics.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model of inflaton decay with non-instantaneous reheating, accounting for particle statistics and inflaton-induced masses, to better understand post-inflationary thermal history.

Findings

Temperature evolution depends on decay product statistics for k>2.

Maximum and final reheating temperatures are computed.

Implications for dark matter abundance during reheating.

Abstract

We analyze in detail the perturbative decay of the inflaton oscillating about a generic form of its potential $V(\phi) = \phi^k$, taking into account the effects of non-instantaneous reheating. We show that evolution of the temperature as a function of the cosmological scale factor depends on the spin statistics of the final state decay products when $k > 2$. We also include the inflaton-induced mass of the final states leading to either kinematic suppression or enhancement if the final states are fermionic or bosonic respectively. We compute the maximum temperature reached after inflation, the subsequent evolution of the temperature and the final reheat temperature. We apply our results to the computation of the dark matter abundance through thermal scattering during reheating. We also provide an example based on supersymmetry for the coupling of the inflaton to matter.