Original language | English |
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Article number | 151301 |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-5 |
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Number of pages | 5 |
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Journal | Physical Review Letters |
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Volume | 117 |
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Issue number | 15 |
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Early online date | 4 Oct 2016 |
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DOIs | |
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Publication status | Published - 7 Oct 2016 |
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We show that inflation can naturally occur at a finite temperature T>H
that is sustained by dissipative effects, when the inflaton field
corresponds to a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson of a broken gauge
symmetry. Similar to the Little Higgs scenarios for electroweak symmetry
breaking, the flatness of the inflaton potential is protected against
both quadratic divergences and the leading thermal corrections. We show
that, nevertheless, nonlocal dissipative effects are naturally present
and are able to sustain a nearly thermal bath of light particles despite
the accelerated expansion of the Universe. As an example, we discuss
the dynamics of chaotic warm inflation with a quartic potential and show
that the associated observational predictions are in very good
agreement with the latest Planck results. This model constitutes the
first realization of warm inflation requiring only a small number of
fields; in particular, the inflaton is directly coupled to just two
light fields.
- hep-ph, astro-ph.CO, gr-qc
ID: 28381004