Post-inflationary reheating and perturbations of the cosmic microwave background

Moorhouse, R. G.; Henriques, A. B.; Mendes, L. E.

Post-inflationary reheating and perturbations of the cosmic microwave background

Authors

Moorhouse, R. G.

Henriques, A. B.

Mendes, L. E.

Description

We formulate a gradual dynamical transition from a power-law inflation era with a scalar field to a radiation era with no scalar field including inhomogeneous perturbations to the Friedmann- Robertson-Walker universe. We show that for the cosmic microwave background radiation fluctuations this is excellently approximated by a sudden transition, with application of the Lichnerowicz conditions, both for density and gravitational wave perturbations.
18 pages, 1 Postscript figure