Monday 4 February, 2:30 pm, Curia II
A universal feature of the standard inflationary models is that all matter must have been created after inflation. The reason is simple: inflation exponentially dilutes the energy densities in all fields except the inflaton itself. Thus, in order to connect with the standard ``Hot'' Big Bang cosmology, the inflaton field must decay and ``reheat'' the universe.
In this talk I will review some aspects of the reheating process focusing in particular on the first stages of reheating. It has been recently appreciated that reheating typically begins with a stage of efficient particle creation called ``preheating''. Whereas great emphasis used to be placed on determining the final reheat temperature after inflation (the equilibrium temperature of the inflaton's decay products when they become the dominant energy component), preheating necessitates that we understand processes far from equilibrium and determine their impact on the subsequent evolution of the universe. Topics covered will include the parametric excitation of bosons and fermions, the non-thermal production of certain relics (super-massive particles like WIMPZILLAs, gravitinos, etc.), lattice studies of bosonic preheating and their importance in understanding rescattering/thermalization, tachyonic preheating in (supersymmetric) hybrid inflation models, and possibly a word or two about non-thermal phase transitions due to preheating.