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The Inflaton and its Mass

Robert Brout
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Abstract

In the context of the two fluid model of space-time fluctuations proposed to tame the transplanckian problem encountered in black hole physics, it is postulated that the inflaton is the fluctuation of mode density, ``the vapor component'' of the model. The mass of the inflaton is occasioned by the exchange of degrees of freedom between the ``vapor'' and the ``liquid'', the planckian ``soup'' in which usual ``cisplanckian'' fields propagate. This exchange between vacuum fluctuations is modeled after its counterpart in the real world i.e. black hole evaporation. In order of magnitude, a very rough semiquantitative estimate, would situate the mass somewhere between $10^{-10}$ and $10^{-5}$ planck masses, the largest uncertainty being the mass of the planckian black hole fluctuation i.e. the entropy that one ascribes to it.

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Robert Brout. 2002-01-20. The Inflaton and its Mass. https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0201060

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