Reheat Temperature and the Right-handed Neutrino Mass

Abstract

We discuss the reheating temperature in the instant preheating scenario. In this scenario, at the last stage of inflation, the inflaton field first decays into another scalar field with an enormous number density via the instant preheating mechanism. Subsequently, the produced scalar field decays into normal matter accompanied by the usual reheating mechanism. As an inflationary model, we identify the inflaton as a field which gives rise to a mass for the right-handed (s)neutrino. One of the interesting consequences of the instant preheating mechanism is the fact that the reheating temperature is proportional to the mass of the decayed particle, {\it the right-handed sneutrino}, $T_R\propto M_R$. This is very different from the ordinary perturbative reheating scenario in which the reheating temperature is proportional to the mass of the inflaton.

Comments: 3 pages, title changed, the version to appear in Phys. Lett. B