Relativistic theories of interacting fields and fluids

Abstract

We investigate divergence-type theories describing the dissipative interaction between a field and a fluid. We look for theories which, under equilibrium conditions, reduce to the theory of a Klein-Gordon scalar field and a perfect fluid. We show that the requirements of causality and positivity of entropy production put nontrivial constraints to the structure of the interaction terms. These theories provide a basis for the phenomonological study of the reheating period.