Reheating after Starobinsky Inflation in the Jordan Frame

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dorsch, Gláuber C., Miranda, Luiz Carlos, Yokomizo, Nelson
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918370936356864
author Dorsch, Gláuber C.
Miranda, Luiz Carlos
Yokomizo, Nelson
author_facet Dorsch, Gláuber C.
Miranda, Luiz Carlos
Yokomizo, Nelson
contents We investigate gravitational reheating in the Starobinsky model in the Jordan frame, where inflation is driven by an $R^2$ modification of gravity with no explicit inflaton field. In this description, reheating proceeds exclusively through gravitational particle production triggered by the oscillations of the Ricci scalar after the end of inflation. We analyze the post-inflationary background evolution and show that an effective fluid emerging from the modified gravitational dynamics behaves as pressureless matter during the oscillatory phase. Including the backreaction of the produced particles, we demonstrate that the Ricci scalar oscillations acquire an exponential damping, consistently terminating particle production. Solving the coupled background and Boltzmann equations, we obtain a reheating temperature $T_{\mathrm{reh}} \sim 2 \times 10^{9}$ GeV. We finally compare the Jordan and Einstein frame descriptions and argue that, although classically equivalent, they can lead to distinct microphysical interpretations and quantitative predictions for reheating once quantum effects are taken into account.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_04497
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reheating after Starobinsky Inflation in the Jordan Frame
Dorsch, Gláuber C.
Miranda, Luiz Carlos
Yokomizo, Nelson
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
We investigate gravitational reheating in the Starobinsky model in the Jordan frame, where inflation is driven by an $R^2$ modification of gravity with no explicit inflaton field. In this description, reheating proceeds exclusively through gravitational particle production triggered by the oscillations of the Ricci scalar after the end of inflation. We analyze the post-inflationary background evolution and show that an effective fluid emerging from the modified gravitational dynamics behaves as pressureless matter during the oscillatory phase. Including the backreaction of the produced particles, we demonstrate that the Ricci scalar oscillations acquire an exponential damping, consistently terminating particle production. Solving the coupled background and Boltzmann equations, we obtain a reheating temperature $T_{\mathrm{reh}} \sim 2 \times 10^{9}$ GeV. We finally compare the Jordan and Einstein frame descriptions and argue that, although classically equivalent, they can lead to distinct microphysical interpretations and quantitative predictions for reheating once quantum effects are taken into account.
title Reheating after Starobinsky Inflation in the Jordan Frame
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.04497