The Quantum Phase of Inflation

Understand

Inflation models can have an early phase of inflation where the evolution of the inflaton is driven by quantum fluctuations before entering the phase driven by the slope of the scalar field potential.

• For a Coleman-Weinberg potential this quantum phase lasts 10^{7-8} e-foldings.
• A long period of fluctuation driven growth of the inflation field can possibly take the inflaton past phi_*, the value of the field where our current horizon scale crosses the horizon; alternatively, even if the field does not cross phi_*, the inflaton could have high kinetic energy at the end of this phase.
• Therefore we study these issues in the context of different models of inflation.