We describe a new efficient mechanism of reheating. Immediately after rolli
ng down the rapidly moving inflaton field phi produces particles chi, which
may be either bosons or fermions. This is a nonperturbative process which
occurs almost instantly; no oscillations or parametric resonance is require
d. The effective masses of the chi particles may be very small at the momen
t when they are produced, but they "fatten" when the field phi increases. W
hen the particles chi become sufficiently heavy, they rapidly decay to othe
r, lighter particles. This leads to an almost instantaneous reheating accom
panied by the production of particles with masses which may be as large as
10(17)-10(18) GeV. This mechanism works in the usual inflationary models wh
ere V(phi) has a minimum, where it takes only a half of a single oscillatio
n of the inflaton field phi, but it is especially efficient in models with
effective potentials slowly decreasing at large phi as in the theory of qui
ntessence. [S0556-2821(99)07912-6].