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Two or three things particle physicists (mis)understand about (pre)heating
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The transition from the end of inflation to a hot, thermal Universe, commonly referred to as (re)heating, is a critical yet often misunderstood phase in early Universe cosmology. This short review aims to provide a comprehensive, conceptually clear, and accessible introduction to the physics of (re)heating, tailored to the particle physics community. We critically examine the standard Boltzmann approach, emphasizing its limitations in capturing the intrinsically non-perturbative and non-linear dynamics that dominate the early stages of energy transfer. These include explosive particle production, inflaton fragmentation, turbulence, and thermalization; phenomena often overlooked in perturbative treatments. We survey a wide range of theoretical tools, from Boltzmann equations to lattice simulations, clarifying when each is applicable and highlighting scenarios where analytic control is still feasible. Special attention is given to model-dependent features such as (pre)heating, the role of fermions, gravitational couplings, and the impact of multifield dynamics. We also discuss exceptional cases, including Starobinsky-like models and instant (pre)heating, where (re)heating proceeds through analytically tractable channels without requiring full non-linear simulations. Ultimately, this review serves both as a practical guide and a cautionary tale, advocating for a more nuanced and physically accurate understanding of this pivotal epoch within the particle physics community.
Forward citations
Cited by 10 Pith papers
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Can the universe be matter-dominated after a supercooled first-order phase transition?
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Seesaw reheating
Reheating temperature is controlled by the lifetime and relativistic-to-nonrelativistic transition of an intermediate seesaw scalar, not by the inflaton decay width, yielding simple analytical expressions for TRH.
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Seesaw Cosmology
In seesaw reheating, the post-inflation universe can pass through four alternating matter/radiation eras, with the Standard Model temperature falling as a^{-1/4} and then a^{-3/8}, which changes dark-matter production.
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Tunnelling out of Starobinsky inflation: Raising the spectral tilt
A first-order phase-transition exit from a displaced Starobinsky branch truncates ~12 e-folds, shifting the spectral tilt from n_s≈0.965 to ≈0.973 at r≈2×10⁻³.
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Revisiting the sphaleron and axion production rates in QCD at high temperatures
Lattice simulations give sphaleron rates in hot QCD plasmas and show axion production rates deviate from perturbative predictions at high temperatures.
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Freezing-in Cannibals with Low-reheating Temperature
Non-instantaneous (low-temperature) reheating combined with 3-to-2 cannibal self-interactions reshapes the freeze-in dark matter parameter space and opens new light-DM regions for future colliders.
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Reheating the FCC: Probing Early Matter Domination with Long-Lived Particles
FCC-hh displaced-vertex searches could probe Higgs-portal scalars whose decays ended an early matter-dominated era at temperatures from ~1 GeV to the electroweak scale.
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The Goldstone Awakens: Unimodular dark energy in scale-invariant $R^2$ gravity
In a scale-invariant R² + unimodular-gravity model, the Goldstone boson of scale symmetry becomes thawing dark energy, with its equation of state fixed by the same coupling that sets the inflationary spectral tilt.
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micrOMEGAs 7: Beyond standard cosmology
The micrOMEGAs dark-matter package now solves Boltzmann equations with user-defined expansion and entropy histories, adds sub-GeV hadronic annihilation, and updates CMB, dwarf-galaxy, LZ, and CMS constraints.
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Primordial Gravitational Waves from Phase Transitions during Reheating
Phase transitions happening during reheating can produce gravitational-wave signals that are delayed, prolonged, and shifted in amplitude and frequency by orders of magnitude compared with standard cosmology.
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