DOE OSTI2023
In this work, we quantify the degree of fine-tuning required to achieve an observationally viable period of inflation in the strongly dissipative regime of warm inflation. The “fine-tuning” parameter λ is taken to be the ratio of the change in the height of the potential Δ V to the change in the scalar field (ΔΦ) 4 , i.e., the width of the potential, and therefore measures the requisite degree of flatness in the potential. The best motivated warm inflationary scenarios involve a dissipation rate of the kind Γ ∝ T c with c ≥ 0 , and for all such cases, the bounds on λ are tighter than those for standard cold inflation by at least 3 orders of magnitude. In other words, these models require an even flatter potential than standard inflation. On the other hand for the case of warm inflation with c < 0, we find that in a strongly dissipative regime the bound on λ can significantly weaken with respect to cold inflation. Thus, if a warm inflation model can be constructed in a strongly dissipative, negatively temperature-dependent regime, it accommodates steeper potentials otherwise ruled out in standard inflation.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗