Cosmology with bulk viscosity and the gravitino problem

Abstract

The gravitino problem is revisited in the framework of cosmological models in which the primordial cosmic matter is described by a relativistic imperfect fluid. Dissipative effects (or bulk viscosity effects) arise owing to the different cooling rates of the fluid components. We show that the effects of the bulk viscosity allow to avoid the late abundance of gravitinos. In particular, we found that for a particular choice of the parameters characterizing the cosmological model, the gravitino abundance turns out to be independent on the reheating temperature.