Violent Preheating in Inflation with Nonminimal Coupling

Understand

We study particle production at the preheating era in inflation models with nonminimal coupling $\xi \phi^2R$ and quartic potential $\lambda \phi^4/4$ for several cases: real scalar inflaton, complex scalar inflaton and Abelian Higgs inflaton.

• We point out that the preheating proceeds much more violently than previously thought.
• If the inflaton is a complex scalar, the phase degree of freedom is violently produced at the first stage of preheating.
• If the inflaton is a Higgs field, the longitudinal gauge boson production is similarly violent.