Warm inflation dynamics in the low temperature regime

Warm inflation scenarios are studied with the dissipative coefficient computed in the equilibrium approximation. Use is made of the analytical expressions available in the low temperature regime with focus on the possibility of achieving strong dissipation within this approximation. Two different types of models are examined: monomial or equivalently chaotic type potentials, and hybrid like models where the energy density during inflation is dominated by the false vacuum. In both cases dissipation is shown to typically increase during inflation and bring the system into the strong dissipative regime. Observational consequences are explored for the amplitude of the primordial spectrum and the spectral index, which translate into constraints on the number of fields mediating the dissipative mechanism, and the number of light degrees of freedom produced during inflation. This paper furthers the foundational development of warm inflation dynamics from first principles quantum field theory by calculating conservative lower bound estimates on dissipative effects during inflation using the well established thermal equilibrium approximation. This approximation does not completely represent the actual physical system and earlier work has shown relaxing both the equilibrium and low temperature constraints can substantially enlarge the warm inflation regime, but these improvements still need further theoretical development.Comment: 13 pages, 2 eps figure

Gravitino production in hybrid inflationary models

It has been recently shown that it is possible to excite gravitinos in an expanding background due to a time varying scalar field oscillating at the bottom of the inflationary potential. The two components of the gravitino, namely helicity 1/2 and helicity 3/2, are excited differently due to the presence of different time varying mass scales in the problem. In this paper we analyse the production of both the helicities in a multi-chiral scenario, in particular focusing on a general model of hybrid inflation. Fermion production in hybrid models is very much different from that of the chaotic models discussed so far in the literature. In this paper we give a full account of gravitino production analytically and numerically. It is noticed that the creation of gravitinos does not take place in the first few oscillations of the inflaton field, rather the production is a gradual and delayed process. It takes roughly 30-40 oscillations to build up the production and for the saturation to take place it can even take longer time, depending on the model parameters. We give an estimation of the reheat temperature and a brief discussion upon back-reaction on the fermionic production, which could change the gravitino abundance.Comment: New comments added, appendix improved. Final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

A Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Model of Hybrid Inflation

We propose a model of inflation based on a simple variant of the NMSSM, called $\phi$NMSSM, where the additional singlet $\phi$ plays the role of the inflaton in hybrid (or inverted hybrid) type models. As in the original NMSSM, the $\phi$NMSSM solves the $\mu$ problem of the MSSM via the VEV of a gauge singlet $N$, but unlike the NMSSM does not suffer from domain wall problems since the offending $Z_3$ symmetry is replaced by an approximate Peccei-Quinn symmetry which also solves the strong CP problem, and leads to an invisible axion with interesting cosmological consequences. The PQ symmetry may arise from a superstring model with an exact discrete $Z_3 \times Z_5$ symmetry after compactification. The model predicts a spectral index $n=1$ to one part in $10^{12}$.Comment: 17 pages, Latex; note added, accepted for Phys. Lett.