Curvaton reheating: an application to braneworld inflation

Abstract

The curvaton was introduced recently as a distinct inflationary mechanism for generating adiabatic density perturbations. Implicit in that scenario is that the curvaton offers a new mechanism for reheating after inflation, as it is a form of energy density not diluted by the inflationary expansion. We consider curvaton reheating in the context of a braneworld inflation model, {\em steep inflation}, which features a novel use of the braneworld to give a new mechanism for ending inflation. The original steep inflation model featured reheating by gravitational particle production, but the inefficiency of that process brings observational difficulties. We demonstrate here that the phenomenology of steep inflation is much improved by curvaton reheating.