141 research outputs found
Preheating in Supersymmetric Theories
We examine the particle production via preheating at the end of inflation in
supersymmetric theories. The inflaton and matter scalars are now necessarily
complex fields, and their relevant interactions are restricted by holomorphy.
In general this leads to major changes both in the inflaton dynamics and in the
efficiency of the preheating process. In addition, supersymmetric models
generically contain multiple isolated vacua, raising the possibility of
non-thermal production of dangerous topological defects. Because of these
effects, the success of leptogenesis or WIMPZILLA production via preheating
depends much more sensitively on the detailed parameters in the inflaton sector
than previously thought.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures; references adde
Out-of-equilibrium evolution of scalar fields in FRW cosmology: renormalization and numerical simulations
We present a renormalized computational framework for the evolution of a
self-interacting scalar field (inflaton) and its quantum fluctuations in an FRW
background geometry. We include a coupling of the field to the Ricci scalar
with a general coupling parameter . We take into account the classical and
quantum back reactions, i.e., we consider the the dynamical evolution of the
cosmic scale factor. We perform, in the one-loop and in the large-N
approximation, the renormalization of the equation of motion for the inflaton
field, and of its energy momentum tensor. Our formalism is based on a
perturbative expansion for the mode functions, and uses dimensional
regularization. The renormalization procedure is manifestly covariant and the
counter terms are independent of the initial state. Some shortcomings in the
renormalization of the energy-momentum tensor in an earlier publication are
corrected. We avoid the occurence of initial singularities by constructing a
suitable class of initial states. The formalism is implemented numerically and
we present some results for the evolution in the post-inflationary preheating
era.Comment: 44 pages, uses latexsym, 6 pages with 11 figures in a .ps fil
Topological Defects Formation after Inflation on Lattice Simulation
We consider the formation of topological defects after inflation. In order to
take into account the effects of the rescattering of fluctuations, we integrate
the classical equation that describes the evolution of a complex scalar field
on the two-dimensional lattice with a slab symmetry. The growth of fluctuations
during preheating is found not to be enough for defect formation, and rather a
long stage of the rescattering of fluctuations after preheating is necessary.
We conclude that the topological defects are not formed if the breaking scale
\eta is lager than \sim (2 - 3)\times 10^{16} GeV.Comment: 7 pages, RevTex, 10 postscript figures included; version to be
published in Phys. Rev.
No cosmological domain wall problem for weakly coupled fields
After inflation occurs, a weakly coupled scalar field will in general not be
in thermal equilibrium but have a distribution of values determined by the
inflationary Hubble parameter. If such a field subsequently undergoes discrete
symmetry breaking, then the different degenerate vacua may not be equally
populated so the domain walls which form will be `biased' and the wall network
will subsequently collapse. Thus the cosmological domain wall problem may be
solved for sufficiently weakly coupled fields in a post-inflationary universe.
We quantify the criteria for determining whether this does happen, using a
Higgs-like potential with a spontaneously broken symmetry.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures (Revtex), clarifying Comments added in
Introduction; to appear in Phys. Rev
Noninteracting dark matter
Since an acceptable dark matter candidate may interact only weakly with
ordinary matter and radiation, it is of interest to consider the limiting case
where the dark matter interacts only with gravity and itself, the matter
originating by the gravitational particle production at the end of inflation.
We use the bounds on the present dark mass density and the measured large-scale
fluctuations in the thermal cosmic background radiation to constrain the two
parameters in a self-interaction potential that is a sum of quadratic and
quartic terms in a single scalar dark matter field that is minimally coupled to
gravity. In quintessential inflation, where the temperature at the end of
inflation is relatively low, the field starts acting like cold dark matter
relatively late, shortly before the epoch of equal mass densities in matter and
radiation. This could have observable consequences for galaxy formation. We
respond to recent criticisms of the quintessential inflation scenario, since
these issues also apply to elements of the noninteracting dark matter picture.Comment: 37 pages, 3 figure
Nonlinear evolution of the momentum dependent condensates in strong interaction: the ``pseudoscalar laser''
We discuss the relaxation of the scalar and pseudoscalar condensates after a
rapid quench from an initial state with fluctuations. If we include not only
the zero-mode but also higher modes of the condensates in the classical
evolution, we observe parametric amplification of those ``hard'' modes. Thus,
they couple nonlinearly to the ``soft'' modes. As a consequence, domains of
coherent pi-field emerge long after the initial spinodal decomposition. The
momentum-space distribution of pions emerging from the decay of that
momentum-dependent condensate is discussed.Comment: 6 Pages, REVTEX, 8 Figures; one reference and one figure adde
Constraining the primordial spectrum of metric perturbations from gravitino and moduli production
We consider the production of gravitinos and moduli fields from quantum
vacuum fluctuations induced by the presence of scalar metric perturbations at
the end of inflation. We obtain the corresponding occupation numbers, up to
first order in perturbation theory, in terms of the power spectrum of the
metric perturbations. We compute the limits imposed by nucleosynthesis on the
spectral index for different models with constant . The results show
that, in certain cases, such limits can be as strong as , which is
more stringent than those coming from primordial black hole production.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures. Corrected figures, new references
included. Final version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Leptogenesis and rescattering in supersymmetric models
The observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe can be due to the
violating decay of heavy right handed (s)neutrinos. The amount of the asymmetry
depends crucially on their number density. If the (s)neutrinos are generated
thermally, in supersymmetric models there is limited parameter space leading to
enough baryons. For this reason, several alternative mechanisms have been
proposed. We discuss the nonperturbative production of sneutrino quanta by a
direct coupling to the inflaton. This production dominates over the
corresponding creation of neutrinos, and it can easily (i.e. even for a rather
small inflaton-sneutrino coupling) lead to a sufficient baryon asymmetry. We
then study the amplification of MSSM degrees of freedom, via their coupling to
the sneutrinos, during the rescattering phase which follows the nonperturbative
production. This process, which mainly influences the (MSSM) flat
directions, is very efficient as long as the sneutrinos quanta are in the
relativistic regime. The rapid amplification of the light degrees of freedom
may potentially lead to a gravitino problem. We estimate the gravitino
production by means of a perturbative calculation, discussing the regime in
which we expect it to be reliable.Comment: (20 pages, 6 figures), references added, typos corrected. Final
version in revte
Inflation and Preheating in NO models
We study inflationary models in which the effective potential of the inflaton
field does not have a minimum, but rather gradually decreases at large .
In such models the inflaton field does not oscillate after inflation, and its
effective mass becomes vanishingly small, so the standard theory of reheating
based on the decay of the oscillating inflaton field does not apply. For a long
time the only mechanism of reheating in such non-oscillatory (NO) models was
based on gravitational particle production in an expanding universe. This
mechanism is very inefficient. We will show that it may lead to cosmological
problems associated with large isocurvature fluctuations and overproduction of
dangerous relics such as gravitinos and moduli fields. We also note that the
setting of initial conditions for the stage of reheating in these models should
be reconsidered. All of these problems can be resolved in the context of the
recently proposed scenario of instant preheating if there exists an interaction
of the inflaton field with another scalar field
. We show that the mechanism of instant preheating in NO models is much
more efficient than the usual mechanism of gravitational particle production
even if the coupling constant is extremely small, .Comment: 10 pages, revte
(Re)constructing Dimensions
Compactifying a higher-dimensional theory defined in R^{1,3+n} on an
n-dimensional manifold {\cal M} results in a spectrum of four-dimensional
(bosonic) fields with masses m^2_i = \lambda_i, where - \lambda_i are the
eigenvalues of the Laplacian on the compact manifold. The question we address
in this paper is the inverse: given the masses of the Kaluza-Klein fields in
four dimensions, what can we say about the size and shape (i.e. the topology
and the metric) of the compact manifold? We present some examples of
isospectral manifolds (i.e., different manifolds which give rise to the same
Kaluza-Klein mass spectrum). Some of these examples are Ricci-flat, complex and
K\"{a}hler and so they are isospectral backgrounds for string theory. Utilizing
results from finite spectral geometry, we also discuss the accuracy of
reconstructing the properties of the compact manifold (e.g., its dimension,
volume, and curvature etc) from measuring the masses of only a finite number of
Kaluza-Klein modes.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, 2 references adde
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