Statistical physics of the inflaton decaying in an inhomogeneous random environment

Abstract

We derive a stochastic wave equation for an inflaton in an environment of an infinite number of fields. We study solutions of the linearized stochastic evolution equation in an expanding universe. The Fokker-Planck equation for the inflaton probability distribution is derived. The relative entropy (free energy) of the stochastic wave is defined. The second law of thermodynamics for the diffusive system is obtained. Gaussian probability distributions are studied in detail.

16 pages, to appear in a special issue of Advances in High Energy Physics

References in corpus (4)

• The Late Time Behavior of False Vacuum Decay: Possible Implications for Cosmology and Metastable Inflating States
• Cosmological implications of the transition from the false vacuum to the true vacuum state
• Thermodynamics of diffusive DM/DE systems
• A relation between diffusion,temperature and the cosmological constant

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Stabilization of Starobinsky-Vilenkin stochastic inflation by an environmental noise
• Slow-roll versus stochastic slow-roll inflation
• Stochastic wave equation with thermal noise in an expanding universe
• Power spectrum of stochastic wave and diffusion equations in the warm inflation models
• Semi-classical Einstein equations:descend to the ground state