arXiv · 2605.11292
Closing the Cosmographic Hierarchy: Dynamical Attractors from Inflation to Reheating
Abstract
We develop a potential-independent cosmographic framework, in which cosmographic parameters are promoted to dynamical variables within a closed autonomous system. Although the cosmographic hierarchy is formally infinite, we achieve closure by mapping potential slow-roll parameters onto the kinematic phase space within General Relativity with a minimally coupled scalar field. Within this framework, we perform a stability analysis and show that inflationary (quasi-de Sitter) solutions arise as natural attractors, while stiff-fluid configurations act as repellers without invoking the slow-roll approximation. To describe the transition to standard Big Bang evolution, we extend the system to include a radiation component and a phenomenological decay term. This leads to a generalized, potential-independent description of reheating characterized by an effective equation of state $w_{\rm eff}$. We demonstrate that the radiation-dominated phase is the late-time attractor of the extended system. These results provide a unified kinematical description of the expansion history from inflation through reheating, bridging cosmography and scalar field dynamics.
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Seturumane Tema, S. Shajidul Haque, Saurya Das, Peter Dunsby. 2026-05-11. Closing the Cosmographic Hierarchy: Dynamical Attractors from Inflation to Reheating. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.11292
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