Gravitational particle production of superheavy massive particles in Quintessential Inflation II: $\alpha$-attractors

Abstract

We compute the gravitational production of conformally coupled superheavy particles during the phase transition from the end of inflation to the beginning of kination for $\alpha$-attractors potentials in the context of Quintessential Inflation ($\alpha$-QI), showing that the maximum value of the reheating temperature, independently of the value of the parameter $\alpha$, is near $10^9$ GeV. This result, which contradicts the usual belief that the reheating via the production of superheavy massive particles leads to an inefficient reheating temperature, is due to the fact that in our numerical calculations we take into account the contribution of the large wavelength modes to the reheating temperature, which never happens in analytical calculations where only ultraviolet modes are considered.