Particle Production During Inflation: Observational Constraints and Signatures

Understand

In a variety of inflation models the motion of the inflaton may trigger the production of some non-inflaton particles during inflation, for example via parametric resonance or a phase transition.

• Particle production during inflation leads to observables in the cosmological fluctuations, such as features in the primordial power spectrum and also nongaussianities.
• Here we focus on a prototype scenario with inflaton, \phi, and iso-inflaton, \chi, fields interacting during inflation via the coupling g^2 (\phi-\phi_0)^2\chi^2.
• Since several previous investigations have hinted at the presence of localized "glitches" in the observed primordial power spectrum, which are inconsistent with the simplest power-law model, it is interesting to determine the extent to which such anomalies can be explained by this simple and well-motivated model.