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Islam Khan – Effects of Inflation Constrained to Explain Dark Energy
April 6, 2021 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
We are honored to host Islam Khan, one of our fellow graduate students present his research on the ‘Effects of Inflation Constrained to Explain Dark Energy’ both in person in Webster 16 and over zoom. The zoom information will be:
Meeting ID: 954 1690 7777
Passcode: osaspie20
Abstract:
Inflation has become one of the most important paradigms in modern cosmology, while investigating dark energy’s nature remains one of its main challenges. This work explores a possible mechanism for connecting inflation and dark energy, where the minimum of the string-theory-motivated Kähler Moduli Inflation I (KMII) potential is constrained to provide a source for today’s dark energy density. The viability of the model and the effects and predictions of the models’ post-inflationary phase known as reheating are analyzed. The model’s parameter space is explored against the measured Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling method. Floquet analysis and numerical lattice simulations are used to analyze the (p)reheating effects of the model, with a focus on the phenomena of self- and parametric resonant effects during the inflaton field oscillations. The allowed ranges of the model parameters are estimated, which are used to predict the reheating temperature of the Universe and the inflaton field’s mass. Although it suffers from fine-tuning and predicts a high reheating temperature, the adopted two-field model is consistent with the measured CMB data when the KMII potential’s minimum is constrained to a value equivalent to the cosmological constant. No self- or parametric resonant effects in either the Floquet analysis or lattice simulation results were found in the regions of interest. Finally, it was found stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds (SGWBs) are generated during the inflaton field oscillations that would be observable today in the 10^9 – 10^10 Hz frequency range.
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