Particle Production and Gravitino Abundance after Inflation

Thermal history after inflation is studied in a chaotic inflation model with supersymmetric couplings of the inflaton to matter fields. Time evolution equation is solved in a formalism that incorporates both the back reaction of particle production and the cosmological expansion. The effect of the parametric resonance gives rise to a rapid initial phase of the inflaton decay followed by a slow stage of the Born term decay. Thermalization takes place immediately after the first explosive stage for a medium strength of the coupling among created particles. As an application we calculate time evolution of the gravitino abundance that is produced by ordinary particles directly created from the inflaton decay, which typically results in much more enhanced yield than what a naive estimate based on the Born term would suggest.Comment: 23 pages + 13 figure

Dynamics of tachyonic preheating after hybrid inflation

We study the instability of a scalar field at the end of hybrid inflation, using both analytical techniques and numerical simulations. We improve previous studies by taking the inflaton field fully into account, and show that the range of unstable modes depends sensitively on the velocity of the inflaton field, and thereby on the Hubble rate, at the end of inflation. If topological defects are formed, their number density is determined by the shortest unstable wavelength. Finally, we show that the oscillations of the inflaton field amplify the inhomogeneities in the energy density, leading to local symmetry restoration and faster thermalization. We believe this explains why tachyonic preheating is so effective in transferring energy away from the inflaton zero mode.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, REVTeX. Minor changes, some references added. To appear in PR

Large-scale magnetic fields from inflation in dilaton electromagnetism

The generation of large-scale magnetic fields is studied in dilaton electromagnetism in inflationary cosmology, taking into account the dilaton's evolution throughout inflation and reheating until it is stabilized with possible entropy production. It is shown that large-scale magnetic fields with observationally interesting strength at the present time could be generated if the conformal invariance of the Maxwell theory is broken through the coupling between the dilaton and electromagnetic fields in such a way that the resultant quantum fluctuations in the magnetic field has a nearly scale-invariant spectrum. If this condition is met, the amplitude of the generated magnetic field could be sufficiently large even in the case huge amount of entropy is produced with the dilution factor $\sim 10^{24}$ as the dilaton decays.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures, the version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D; some references are adde

On Physical Equivalence between Nonlinear Gravity Theories

We argue that in a nonlinear gravity theory, which according to well-known results is dynamically equivalent to a self-gravitating scalar field in General Relativity, the true physical variables are exactly those which describe the equivalent general-relativistic model (these variables are known as Einstein frame). Whenever such variables cannot be defined, there are strong indications that the original theory is unphysical. We explicitly show how to map, in the presence of matter, the Jordan frame to the Einstein one and backwards. We study energetics for asymptotically flat solutions. This is based on the second-order dynamics obtained, without changing the metric, by the use of a Helmholtz Lagrangian. We prove for a large class of these Lagrangians that the ADM energy is positive for solutions close to flat space. The proof of this Positive Energy Theorem relies on the existence of the Einstein frame, since in the (Helmholtz--)Jordan frame the Dominant Energy Condition does not hold and the field variables are unrelated to the total energy of the system.Comment: 37 pp., TO-JLL-P 3/93 Dec 199

Baryon number violation, baryogenesis and defects with extra dimensions

In generic models for grand unified theories(GUT), various types of baryon number violating processes are expected when quarks and leptons propagate in the background of GUT strings. On the other hand, in models with large extra dimensions, the baryon number violation in the background of a string is not trivial because it must depend on the mechanism of the proton stabilization. In this paper we argue that cosmic strings in models with extra dimensions can enhance the baryon number violation to a phenomenologically interesting level, if the proton decay is suppressed by the mechanism of localized wavefunctions. We also make some comments on baryogenesis mediated by cosmological defects. We show at least two scenarios will be successful in this direction. One is the scenario of leptogenesis where the required lepton number conversion is mediated by cosmic strings, and the other is the baryogenesis from the decaying cosmological domain wall. Both scenarios are new and have not been discussed in the past.Comment: 20pages, latex2e, comments and references added, to appear in PR

Discrete symmetries, invisible axion and lepton number symmetry in an economic 3-3-1 model

We show that Peccei-Quinn and lepton number symmetries can be a natural outcome in a 3-3-1 model with right-handed neutrinos after imposing a Z_11 x Z_2 symmetry. This symmetry is suitably accommodated in this model when we augmented its spectrum by including merely one singlet scalar field. We work out the breaking of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry, yielding the axion, and study the phenomenological consequences. The main result of this work is that the solution to the strong CP problem can be implemented in a natural way, implying an invisible axion phenomenologically unconstrained, free of domain wall formation and constituting a good candidate for the cold dark matter.Comment: 17 pages, Revtex

Charged pion form factor between Q^2=0.60 and 2.45 GeV^2. II. Determination of, and results for, the pion form factor

The charged pion form factor, Fpi(Q^2), is an important quantity which can be used to advance our knowledge of hadronic structure. However, the extraction of Fpi from data requires a model of the 1H(e,e'pi+)n reaction, and thus is inherently model dependent. Therefore, a detailed description of the extraction of the charged pion form factor from electroproduction data obtained recently at Jefferson Lab is presented, with particular focus given to the dominant uncertainties in this procedure. Results for Fpi are presented for Q^2=0.60-2.45 GeV^2. Above Q^2=1.5 GeV^2, the Fpi values are systematically below the monopole parameterization that describes the low Q^2 data used to determine the pion charge radius. The pion form factor can be calculated in a wide variety of theoretical approaches, and the experimental results are compared to a number of calculations. This comparison is helpful in understanding the role of soft versus hard contributions to hadronic structure in the intermediate Q^2 regime.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure

Limits on the gravity wave contribution to microwave anisotropies

We present limits on the fraction of large angle microwave anisotropies which could come from tensor perturbations. We use the COBE results as well as smaller scale CMB observations, measurements of galaxy correlations, abundances of galaxy clusters, and Lyman alpha absorption cloud statistics. Our aim is to provide conservative limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio for standard inflationary models. For power-law inflation, for example, we find T/S<0.52 at 95% confidence, with a similar constraint for phi^p potentials. However, for models with tensor amplitude unrelated to the scalar spectral index it is still currently possible to have T/S>1.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D. Calculations extended to blue spectral index, Fig. 6 added, discussion of results expande

The Sensitivity of Ligo to a Stochastic Background, and its Dependance on the Detector Orientations

We analyze the sensitivity of a network of interferometer gravitational-wave detectors to the gravitational-wave stochastic background, and derive the dependence of this sensitivity on the orientations of the detector arms. We build on and extend the recent work of Christensen, but our conclusion for the optimal choice of orientations of a pair of detectors differs from his. For a pair of detectors (such as LIGO) that subtends an angle at the center of the earth of \,\alt 70^\circ, we find that the optimal configuration is for each detector to have its arms make an angle of $45^\circ$ (modulo $90^\circ$) with the arc of the great circle that joins them. For detectors that are farther separated, each detector should instead have one arm aligned with this arc. We also describe in detail the optimal data-analysis algorithm for searching for the stochastic background with a detector network, which is implicit in earlier work of Michelson. The LIGO pair of detectors will be separated by $\sim 3000 \, {\rm km}$. The minimum detectable stochastic energy-density for these detectors with their currently planned orientations is $\sim 3\%$ greater than what it would be if the orientations were optimal.Comment: 56 pages, 10 figures, Caltech preprint GRP-347, submitted to Phys Rev D, uses revtex macro

Large-scale magnetic fields from inflation due to a CPTCPT-even Chern-Simons-like term with Kalb-Ramond and scalar fields

We investigate the generation of large-scale magnetic fields due to the breaking of the conformal invariance in the electromagnetic field through the $CPT$-even dimension-six Chern-Simons-like effective interaction with a fermion current by taking account of the dynamical Kalb-Ramond and scalar fields in inflationary cosmology. It is explicitly demonstrated that the magnetic fields on 1Mpc scale with the field strength of $\sim 10^{-9}$G at the present time can be induced.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, version accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.