Particle production and symmetry restoration in collisions of vacuum bubbles
Particle production and symmetry restoration in collisions of vacuum bubbles
In first-order inflation a phase transition is completed by the collisions of expanding true-vacuum bubbles. If bubble collisions produce large numbers of soft scalar particles carrying quantum numbers associated with a spontaneously broken symmetry, then symmetry restoration may occur in a ``preheating'' phase in a manner similar to symmetry restoration …