Quintessential Inflation and Cosmological Dynamics
Summary
Quintessential inflation presents a unified paradigm in which a single scalar field drives both the rapid expansion of the early Universe and its current accelerated expansion. In this framework, the inflaton field exits the inflationary plateau on a runaway potential and enters a kinetic-energy dominated phase, known as kination, before transferring energy to radiation through gravitational or non-perturbative processes. The ensuing reheating mechanism restores the hot Big Bang conditions without necessitating inflaton oscillations. Following this, the scalar field gradually slows under its potential, emerging as a candidate for dark energy or quintessence. This approach addresses key cosmological issues—such as the horizon and flatness problems, the nature of dark energy and the generation of relic gravitational waves—within a single coherent theory. Constraints from the cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure guide the model parameters, yielding testable predictions for tensor modes, equation-of-state evolution and the spectrum of high-frequency gravitational waves.
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Quintessential Inflation and Cosmological Dynamics publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in quintessential inflation and cosmological dynamics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Quintessence: A dynamical scalar field responsible for the present accelerated expansion of the Universe, whose energy density evolves over time.
Inflation: A rapid exponential expansion of the early Universe driven by a scalar field, resolving the flatness and horizon problems.
Kination: A post-inflationary epoch dominated by the kinetic energy of a scalar field rather than its potential energy.
Reheating: The process by which the cold, empty Universe after inflation becomes filled with radiation and matter, restoring the hot Big Bang conditions.
α-attractor: A class of inflationary models characterised by a pole structure in the kinetic term, leading to universal predictions for inflationary observables.
Tachyonic Ricci heating: A mechanism of particle production induced by a symmetry-breaking phase transition in the Ricci scalar, leading to efficient reheating without inflaton oscillations.
References
- Testing α -attractor quintessential inflation against CMB and low-redshift data. Physics of the Dark Universe (2024).
- Ricci reheating reloaded. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (2024).
- Observable gravitational waves from hyperkination in Palatini gravity and beyond. European Physical Journal C (2023).
- A Review of Quintessential Inflation. Galaxies (2021).
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