Flat direction dynamics in a non-topological soliton-dominated universe

Abstract

In running mass inflation and hybrid inflation models it is possible that the inflaton fieldwill fragment into non-topological solitons, resulting in a highly inhomogeneouspost-inflation era prior to reheating. In supersymmetric models with a conventionalhomogeneous post-inflation era, the dynamics of flat direction scalars are determined bycH2 corrections to the mass squared terms (where ), coming from F-terms in the early universe combined with Planck-scale suppressedinteractions. Here we reconsider the mass squared corrections for a universe dominated byinflatonic non-topological solitons. We show that in this case the dynamics of acoherently oscillating flat direction scalar are typically the same as for the casewhere there is no significant mass squared correction, even in the vicinity of thenon-topological solitons. Therefore the dynamics of flat direction scalars in auniverse dominated by inflatonic non-topological solitons are equivalent to the casec = 0 of a homogeneous universe.