Tachyon Defect Formation and Reheating in Brane-Antibrane Inflation

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how lower-dimensional branes form during brane-antibrane inflation via tachyon condensation and evaluates the efficiency of reheating through tachyon-gauge field coupling, suggesting it can be an effective mechanism.

Contribution

It provides an analytical study of tachyon defect formation and quantifies reheating efficiency in brane-antibrane inflation models.

Findings

Tachyon condensation leads to formation of lower-dimensional branes.

Reheating via tachyon-gauge field coupling can be efficient.

Improves previous estimates of reheating effectiveness.

Abstract

We study analytically the dynamical formation of lower dimensional branes at the endpoint of brane-antibrane inflation through the condensation of topological defects of the tachyon field which describes the instability of the initial state. We then use this information to quantify the efficiency of the reheating which is due to the coupling of time dependent tachyon background to massless gauge fields which will be localized on the final state branes. We improve upon previous estimates indicating that this can be an efficient reheating mechanism for observers on the brane.