Reheating and Leptogenesis after Vector inflation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a vector inflaton field influences reheating and leptogenesis, emphasizing gravitational particle production and the effects of non-minimal coupling in an isotropic universe.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of particle production mechanisms and leptogenesis specific to vector inflaton models, highlighting the role of non-minimal gravitational couplings.

Findings

Gravitational production is significant during the oscillating phase.

Non-minimal coupling enhances particle production and decay channels.

Vector inflaton models exhibit richer phenomenology than scalar models.

Abstract

We study the reheating and non-thermal leptogenesis in the case of a vector inflaton. We concentrate on particle production during the phase of oscillating background, especially gravitational production induced by the presence of non-minimal coupling imposed by an isotropic and homogeneous Universe. Including processes involving the exchange of graviton, we then extend our study to decay into fermions via direct or anomalous couplings. The necessity of non-minimal gravitational coupling and the gauge nature of couplings to fermions implies a much richer phenomenology than for a scalar inflaton.