Reheating in inflationary cosmology: Theory and applications

Abstract

Reheating is an important part of inflationary cosmology. It describes the production of Standard Model particles after the phase of accelerated expansion. We review the reheating process with a focus on an in-depth discussion of the preheating stage, which is characterized by exponential particle production due to a parametric resonance or tachyonic instability. We give a brief overview of the thermalization process after preheating and end with a survey of some applications to supersymmetric theories and to other issues in cosmology, such as baryogenesis, dark matter, and metric preheating. © 2010 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved.