Enhanced reheating via Bose condensates

Abstract

In supersymmetric extensions of the particle physics Standard Model, gauge invariant combinations of squarks and sleptons (flat directions) can acquire large expectation values during a period of cosmological inflation. If the inflaton sector couples to matter fields via these flat directions, then new channels for efficient reheating, in particular via parametric resonance instabilities, are opened up. These can lead to efficient reheating induced by the flat directions even if the bare coupling constants are small. In this Letter we discuss various channels which yield this ``enhanced reheating'' effect, and we address some cosmological consequences.