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arXiv · hep-th/9601134

Thermal Properties of an Inflationary Universe

Arjun Berera
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Abstract

An energetic justification of a thermal component during inflation is given. The thermal component can act as a heat reservoir which induces thermal fluctuations on the inflaton field system. We showed previously that such thermal fluctuations could dominate quantum fluctuations in producing the initial seeds of density perturbations. A Langevin-like rate equation is derived from quantum field theory which describes the production of fluctuations in the inflaton field when acted upon by a simple modeled heat reservoir. In a certain limit this equation is shown to reduce to the standard Langevin equation, which we used to construct "Warm Inflation" scenarios in previous work. A particle physics interpretation of our system-reservoir model is offered.

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Arjun Berera. 1996-05-21. Thermal Properties of an Inflationary Universe. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.54.2519

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