Contents
ix
Bibliography
170
6 Supersymmetric dark matter
172
6.1 Introduction
172
6.2 Weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs
175
6.3 The gravitino problem
177
6.4 Minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM)
179
6.5 Neutralino dark matter
181
6.6 Detection of dark matter
187
6.6.1 Neutralino-nuc1eon elastic scattering
188
6.6.2 WIMP annihilation in the sun or earth
189
6.6.3 WIMP annihilation in the halo
192
6.7 Exercises
192
6.8 General references
193
Bibliography
193
7 Inflationary cosmology
195
7.1 Introduction
195
7.2 Horizon, flatness and unwanted relics problems
195
7.2.1 The horizon problem
195
7.2.2 The flatness problem
197
7.2.3 The unwanted relics problem
198
7.3 Old inflation
199
7.4 New inflation
201
7.5 Reheating after inflation
206
7.6 Inflaton field equations
208
7.1 Density perturbations
210
7.8 A worked example
214
7.9 Complex inflaton field
216
7.10 Chaotic inflation
217
7.11 Hybrid inflation
220
7.12 The spectral index
221
7.13 Exercises
224
7. 14 General references
224
Bibliography
224
8 Inflation in supergravity
226
8.1 Introduction
226
8.2 Models of supergravity inflation
227
8.3 D-term supergravity inflation
232
8.4 Hybrid inflation in supergravity
234
8.5 Thermal production of gravitinos by reheating
237
8.6 The Polonyi problem
238
8.6.1 Inflaton decays before Polonyi field oscillation
240
8.6.2 Inflaton decays after Polonyi field oscillation
244