Noise and Dissipation During Preheating

Abstract

We study the consequences of noise and dissipation for parametric resonance during preheating. The effective equations of motion for the inflaton and the radiation field are obtained and shown to present self-consistent noise and dissipation terms. The equations exhibit the usual parametric resonance phenomenon, allowing for exponential amplification of the radiation modes inside the instability bands. By focusing on the dimension of the border of those bands we explicitly show that they are fractal, indicating the strong dependence of the outcome in the initial conditions. The simultaneous effect of noise and dissipation to the fractality of the borders are then examined.