Preheating after multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings, II: Resonance Structure

Abstract

This is the second in a series of papers on preheating in inflationary models comprised of multiple scalar fields coupled nonminimally to gravity. In this paper, we work in the rigid-spacetime approximation and consider field trajectories within the single-field attractor, which is a generic feature of these models. We construct the Floquet charts to find regions of parameter space in which particle production is efficient for both the adiabatic and isocurvature modes, and analyze the resonance structure using analytic and semi-analytic techniques. Particle production in the adiabatic direction is characterized by the existence of an asymptotic scaling solution at large values of the nonminimal couplings, $ξ_I \gg 1$, in which the dominant instability band arises in the long-wavelength limit, for comoving wavenumbers $k \rightarrow 0$. However, the large-$ξ_I$ regime is not reached until $ξ_I \geq {\cal O} (100)$. In the intermediate regime, with $ξ_I \sim {\cal O}(1 - 10)$, the resonance structure depends strongly on wavenumber and couplings. The resonance structure for isocurvature perturbations is distinct and more complicated than its adiabatic counterpart. An intermediate regime, for $ξ_I \sim {\cal O} (1 - 10)$, is again evident. For large values of $ξ_I$, the Floquet chart consists of densely spaced, nearly parallel instability bands, suggesting a very efficient preheating behavior. The increased efficiency arises from features of the nontrivial field-space manifold in the Einstein frame, which itself arises from the fields' nonminimal couplings in the Jordan frame, and has no analogue in models with minimal couplings. Quantitatively, the approach to the large-$ξ_I$ asymptotic solution for isocurvature modes is slower than in the case of the adiabatic modes.