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SUMMARY:Sphaleron heating in warm inflation - Kim V. Berghaus (Caltech)
DTSTART:20250324T130000Z
DTEND:20250324T140000Z
UID:TALK226825@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Thomas Colas
DESCRIPTION:Warm inflation postulates an early period of sustained acceler
 ated expansion in the presence of a thermal bath. It predicts that the inf
 laton fluctuations that seed structure are of classical\, rather than quan
 tum origin. The imprints of those fluctuations in the cosmic microwave bac
 kground are sensitive to the functional dependence of the thermal friction
  coefficient that transfers energy from the inflaton to the thermal bath. 
 An axion-like coupling between the inflaton and non-Abelian fields induces
  real-time sphaleron transitions which successfully source a thermal bath 
 during inflation\, providing a minimal microphysical model from which warm
  inflation emerges. It is known that for a pure Yang-Mills gauge group\, t
 he thermal friction has a cubic temperature dependence. In this talk\, I w
 ill discuss how the presence of light fermions charged under the non-Abeli
 an group modifies sphaleron heating. The back-reaction due to fermions lea
 ds to different functional dependencies with respect to temperature and in
 flaton field value\, some of which have not been considered before in phen
 omenological studies of warm inflation. Lastly\, I will comment on the pro
 spect of Standard Model gauge interactions inducing warm inflation.
LOCATION:CMS\, Pav. B\, CTC Common Room (B1.19) [Potter Room]
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