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arXiv · 1012.4632

Quantum theory of fermion production after inflation

J. Berges·D. Gelfand·J. Pruschke
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Abstract

We show that quantum effects dramatically enhance the production of fermions following preheating after inflation in the early Universe in the presence of high excitations of bosonic quanta. As a consequence fermions rapidly approach a quasistationary distribution with a thermal occupancy in the infrared, while the inflaton enters a turbulent scaling regime. The failure of standard semiclassical descriptions based on the Dirac equation with a homogeneous background field is caused by nonperturbatively high boson occupation numbers. During preheating the inflaton occupation number increases, thus leading to a dynamical mechanism for the enhanced production of fermions from the rescattering of the inflaton quanta. We comment on related phenomena in heavy-ion collisions for the production of quark matter fields from highly occupied gauge bosons.

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J. Berges, D. Gelfand, J. Pruschke. 2011-11-28. Quantum theory of fermion production after inflation. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.107.061301

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