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arXiv · 1510.05661

Thermal History of the Universe After Inflation

Scott Watson
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Abstract

When did the universe thermalize? In this talk I review the status of this issue and its importance in establishing the expected properties of dark matter, the growth of large-scale structure, and the viability of inflation models when confronted with CMB observations. I also present a novel approach to tackling the theoretical challenges surrounding inflationary (p)reheating, which seeks to extend past work on the Effective Field Theory of Inflation to the time of reheating.

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Scott Watson. 2015-10-19. Thermal History of the Universe After Inflation. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4953317

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