Reheating constraints on K-inflation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how reheating parameters constrain K-inflation models with different kinetic terms and potentials, analyzing their compatibility with Planck-2018 and BICEP2/Keck data, and deriving bounds on inflationary observables.

Contribution

It provides new bounds on the tensor-to-scalar ratio and spectral index for various K-inflation models based on reheating constraints and observational data.

Findings

DBI K-inflation with quadratic and quartic potentials slightly exceeds Planck bounds on r.

Natural inflation with DBI kinetic term is compatible with observational constraints.

Exponential potential with power-law kinetic term requires w_re > 1 to fit data.

Abstract

In this work we revisit constraints on K-inflation with DBI kinetic term and power-law kinetic term from reheating. For DBI kinetic term we choose monomial potentials, $V\propto \phi^n$ with $n=2/3\,,1\,,\,2$ and $4$, and natural inflaton potential, and for power-law kinetic term we choose quadratic, quartic and exponential potentials. The phase of reheating can be parameterized in terms of reheating temperature $T_{re}$, number of e-folds during reheating $N_{re}$ and effective equation of state during reheating $w_{re}$. These parameters can be related to the spectral index $n_s$ and other inflationary parameters depending on the choice of inflaton kinetic term and potential. By demanding that $w_{re}$ should have a finite range and $T_{re}$ should be above electroweak scale, one can obtain the bounds on $n_s$ that can provide bounds on tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$. We find, for K-inflation with DBI kinetic term and quadratic and quartic potentials, that the upper bound on $r$ for physically plausible value of $0\le w_{re} \le 0.25$ is slightly larger than the Planck-2018 and BICEP2/Keck array bound, and for $n=2/3$ and $1$, the reheating equation of state should be less than $0$ to satisfy Planck-2018 joint constraints on $n_s$ and $r$. However, natural inflation with DBI kinetic term is compatible with Planck-2018 bounds on $r$ and joint constraints on $n_s$ and $r$ for physically plausible range $0 \le w_{re}\le 0.25$. The quadratic and quartic potential with power-law kinetic term are also compatible with Planck-2018 joint constraints on $n_s$ and $r$ for $0\le w_{re} \le 1$. However, for exponential potential with power-law kinetic term, the equation of state during reheating $w_{re}$ should be greater than $1$ for $r-n_s$ predictions to lie within $68\%$C.L. of joint constraints on $n_s$ and $r$ from Planck-2018 observations.