Early universe phenomenology with an inflaton and primordial black holes

par Mathieu Gross (IJCLab)

jeudi 5 mars 2026, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

210/1-114 - Salle des Séminaires (IJCLab)

Cosmological inflation is nowadays well installed at the edge of the standard model cosmology as it solves several shortcomings of the ΛCDM model. However, this accelerated growth of the universe should crucially transition to radiation domination for the late universe evolution to occur. This mandatory feature called “reheating” can be achieved in different ways depending on the shape of the inflationary potential and how the inflaton field couples to matter.

In this talk, we will discuss how to go beyond the usual assumptions of instantaneous reheating in the context of single-field slow-roll inflation, focusing more specifically on perturbative reheating and its impact on particle production, such as relativistic dark matter. We will then briefly discuss the high-frequency gravitational wave signals emerging from particle reheating before presenting how primordial black holes could achieve reheating and lead to a more reachable GW signal. We will finally discuss their local thermal effects on dark matter production.