The Origin of Matter in the Universe: Reheating after Inflation

TL;DR

This paper reviews the recent theoretical developments in the reheating process after cosmic inflation, explaining how matter was generated and exploring various phenomena like particle creation, phase transitions, and baryogenesis.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest theories and mechanisms involved in reheating, highlighting new insights into particle production and cosmological implications.

Findings

Reheating involves perturbative and non-perturbative particle production.

Quantum field theory in dynamic backgrounds is crucial for understanding reheating.

Reheating can lead to baryogenesis and non-thermal phase transitions.

Abstract

In the inflationary scenario all the matter constituting the universe was created from the process of reheating after inflation. Recent development of the theory of reheating is briefly reviewed. The list of topics includes elementary (perturbative) theory of reheating; quantum field theory in a time-varying background; parametric resonance and explosive particle creation; non-thermal phase transitions from reheating; baryogenesis from reheating; residual oscillations of the scalar field, and other cosmological applications.