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Production of Massless Fermions during Inflation

T. Prokopec·R. P. Woodard
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Abstract

We compute the one loop self energy, in a locally de Sitter background, for a massless fermion which is Yukawa-coupled to a massless, minimally coupled scalar. We then solve the modified Dirac equation resulting from inclusion of the self energy. We find faster-than-exponential growth in the fermion wave function, consistent with the production of fermions through a process in which a scalar and a fermion-anti-fermion pair are ripped out of the vacuum by inflation.

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T. Prokopec, R. P. Woodard. 2006-02-02. Production of Massless Fermions during Inflation. https://doi.org/10.1088/1126-6708%2F2003%2F10%2F059

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