2:30pm Monday October 19 in Curia II
We consider creation of matter in the early Universe after inflation. Discussion ranges from creation of sterile superheavy X-particles from vacuum in a time varying metric, to explosive production of Bosons in parametric resonance. The former particles may contribute to dark matter if they are stable, or even help to explain ultra high energy cosmic ray events if they are long-living. Parametric resonance leads to new highly non-equilibrium states where symmetry restoration and subsequent phase transitions become possible. Creation of topological defects such as cosmic strings in these phase transitions will be demonstrated.