Creation of matter after inflation

by Andrei LINDE (Stanford University and CERN)

Wednesday 15 Sept 1999, 14:00 → 14:15 Europe/Zurich

TH Auditorium (CERN)

According to inflationary theory, all matter in the universe was created in the process of reheating after inflation. Recently it was realized that reheating is a nonperturbative effect which often involves creation of particles in the process of parametric resonance. This process, which is called 'preheating,' is especially efficient if the created particles are bosons, but nonperturbative production of fermions is also possible. We will describe the mechanism of instant preheating which may lead to production of particles with masses up to the Planck mass 10¹⁹ GeV. We will also discuss the theory of nonthermal phase transitions induced by preheating, and the problem of overproduction of gravitinos and other dangerous relics.