Implications of time-dependent inflaton decay on reheating and dark matter production

Ahmed, Aqeel; Grza̧dkowski, Bohdan; Socha, Anna

doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2022.137201

Cited by 28 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…which is straightforward to solve when the inflaton decay rate to SM Higgs boson pairs is known. As we will show in the following subsections, in general, the width is a function of time [17]. In the next subsection, we calculate the inflaton "decay" to a pair of Higgs bosons, taking into account the non-trivial φ-depenent Higgs mass.…”

Section: A Evolution Of the Inflaton And Sm Energy Densitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the DM interactions with the SM and inflaton are assumed to be Planck mass suppressed, therefore vector DM is not in thermal equilibrium with the SM bath. We study DM production through its gravitational interactions with the inflaton background field [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] as well as through the annihilation of SM particles, also known as the gravitational freeze-in mechanism [25][26][27][28][29][30]. Moreover, DM production through direct inflaton decay is also investigated.…”

Section: Contentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Fig. 2 we show the numerical solution for φ(a), obtained after solving two coupled equations ( 16) and (17). The rapid oscillations of P(a) are damped by the decreasing envelope ϕ(a) due to the redshift of the Universe.…”

Section: Inflaton Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…where superscript "(0)" denotes the massless Higgs boson case. Note that for a generic value of n = 1 the inflaton decay width is a function of time which can lead to non-trivial consequences for reheating dynamics [17]. In particular, for n < 1, Γ…”

Section: Reheating Through Massless Higgs Bosonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…FIG.2. Numerical solutions for the inflaton EoM (16) and(17) as a function of the scale factor a for various choices on n. The vertical dashed line indicates the end of inflation, defined by the condition V (φ(ae)) = 1. Colored dots present the value of φ(ae) for different values of n.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Higgs boson induced reheating and ultraviolet frozen-in dark matter

Ahmed¹,

Grza̧dkowski²,

Socha³

2022

Preprint

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Section: A Evolution Of the Inflaton And Sm Energy Densitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Contentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Inflaton Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Reheating Through Massless Higgs Bosonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Higgs boson induced reheating and ultraviolet frozen-in dark matter

Ahmed¹,

Grza̧dkowski²,

Socha³

2022

Preprint

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Higgs boson induced reheating and ultraviolet frozen-in dark matter

Ahmed

Grza̧dkowski

Socha

2023

J. High Energ. Phys.

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A reheating phase in the early universe is an essential part of all inflationary models during which not only the Standard Model (SM) quanta are produced but it can also shed light on the production of dark matter. In this work, we explore a class of reheating models where the reheating is induced by a cubic interaction of the inflaton ϕ to the SM Higgs boson h of the form ghϕMPlϕ|h|2 adopting the α-attractor T-model of inflation. Assuming inflaton as a background field such interaction implies a ϕ-dependent mass term of the Higgs boson and a non-trivial phase-space suppression of the reheating efficiency. As a consequence, the reheating is prolonged and the maximal temperature of the SM thermal bath is reduced. In particular, due to oscillations of the inflaton field the ϕ-dependent Higgs boson mass results in periodic transitions between phases of broken and unbroken electroweak gauge symmetry. The consequences of these rapid phase transitions have been studied in detail. A purely gravitational reheating mechanism in the presence of the inflaton background, i.e., for ghϕ = 0, has also been investigated. It turned out that even though it may account for the total production of SM radiation in the absence of ghϕ, its contribution to the reheating is subdominant for the range of ghϕ considered in this work. Approximate analytical solutions of Boltzmann equations for energy densities of the inflaton and SM radiation have been obtained. As a dark matter candidate a massive Abelian vector boson, Xμ, has been considered. Various production mechanisms of Xμ have been discussed including (i) purely gravitational production from the inflaton background, (ii) gravitational freeze-in from the SM quanta, (iii) inflaton decay through a dim-5 effective operator, and (iv) Higgs portal freeze-in and Higgs decay through a dim-6 effective operator. Parameters that properly describe the observed relic abundance have been determined.

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Measuring inflaton couplings via primordial gravitational waves

Barman

Ghoshal

Grza̧dkowski

et al. 2023

J. High Energ. Phys.

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We investigate the reach of future gravitational wave (GW) detectors in probing inflaton couplings with visible sector particles that can either be bosonic or fermionic in nature. Assuming reheating takes place through perturbative quantum production from vacuum in presence of classical inflaton background field, we find that the spectral energy density of the primordial GW generated during inflation becomes sensitive to inflaton-matter coupling. We conclude, obeying bounds from Big Bang Nucleosysthesis and Cosmic Microwave Background, that, e.g., inflaton-scalar couplings of the order of ~ 𝒪(10−20) GeV fall within the sensitivity range of several proposed GW detector facilities. However, this prediction is sensitive to the size of the inflationary scale, nature of the inflaton-matter interaction and shape of the potential during reheating. Having found the time-dependent effective inflaton decay width, we also discuss its implications for dark matter (DM) production from the thermal plasma via UV freeze-in during reheating. It is shown, that one can reproduce the observed DM abundance for its mass up to several PeVs, depending on the dimension of the operator connecting DM with the thermal bath and the associated scale of the UV physics. Thus we promote primordial GW to observables sensitive to feebly coupled inflaton, which is very challenging if not impossible to test in conventional particle physics laboratories or astrophysical measurements.

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Implications of time-dependent inflaton decay on reheating and dark matter production

Cited by 28 publications

References 22 publications

Higgs boson induced reheating and ultraviolet frozen-in dark matter

Higgs boson induced reheating and ultraviolet frozen-in dark matter

Higgs boson induced reheating and ultraviolet frozen-in dark matter

Measuring inflaton couplings via primordial gravitational waves

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