Resonance enhancement of particle production during reheating

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum fluctuations influence resonance during reheating after inflation, revealing subtle frequency shifts and a distinct dynamical process that resembles parametric resonance.

Contribution

It introduces a modified reheating equation accounting for quantum interference and explores its implications through a toy quantum mechanical model.

Findings

Resonance frequencies are slightly shifted for small quantum fluctuations.

At large fluctuations, the process resembles parametric resonance but follows a different dynamical mechanism.

The study provides a foundation for extending the analysis to quantum field theory.

Abstract

We found a consistent equation of reheating after inflation, which shows that for small quantum fluctuations the frequencies of resonance are slighted different from the standard ones. Quantum interference is taken into account and we found that at large fluctuations the process mimics very well the usual parametric resonance but proceed in a different dynamical way. The analysis is made in a toy quantum mechanical model and we discuss further its extension to quantum field theory.