Reheating an Inflationary Universe

Abstract

A numerical analysis of the evolution of the Higgs expectation value and the temperature of the universe during the symmetry-breaking phase transition in an SU(5) theory with radiatively induced symmetry breaking is presented. It is shown that there is sufficient inflation (exponential expansion) to explain the cosmological homogeneity, isotropy, flatness, and monopole puzzles, and also that the universe reheats to a temperature $O({10}^{14} \mathrm{GeV})$ so that the usual scheme for baryogenesis can proceed.