Holographic Preheating

Abstract

We propose a holographic description of cosmic preheating at strong coupling. In this scenario the energy transfer between the inflaton and matter field is mimicked by a model of holographic superconductor. An exponential amplification of the matter field during preheating can be described by the quasi-normal modes of a metastable "black hole" in the bulk spacetime with an expanding boundary. Our results reveal that the matter field can be produced continuously at strong coupling in contrast to the case of weak coupling with a discontinuous matter growth as inflaton oscillates. Furthermore, the amplification of matter field has an enhanced dependence on the vacuum expectation value of the inflaton at strong coupling. By virtue of the proposed mechanism, physics of the very early universe at an extremely high temperature right after inflation may become accessible.