The gravitino problem in supersymmetric warm inflation

Abstract

The warm inflation paradigm considers the continuous production ofradiation during inflation due to dissipative effects. In its strongdissipation limit, warm inflation gives way to a radiation dominatedUniverse. High scale inflation then yields a high reheatingtemperature, which then poses a severe gravitino overproductionproblem for the supersymmetric realisations of warm inflation. In thispaper we show that, in a certain class of supersymmetric models, thedissipative dynamics of the inflaton is such that the field can avoidits complete decay after inflation. In some cases, the residual energydensity stored in the inflaton field oscillations may come to dominateover the radiation bath at a later epoch. If the inflaton field finallydecays much later than the onset of this matter dominated phase, theentropy produced from its decay may be sufficient to counteract theexcess of gravitinos produced during the last stages of warm inflation.