Preheating in supersymmetric hybrid inflation - art. no. 103517

We study preheating in a general class of supersymmetric hybrid inflation m odels. Supersymmetry leads to only one coupling constant in the potential a nd thus only one natural frequency of oscillation for the homogeneous field s, whose classical evolution consequently differs from that of a general (n on-supersymmetric) hybrid model. We emphasize the importance of mixing effe cts in these models which can significantly change the rate of production o f particles. We perform a general study of the rate of production of the pa rticles associated with the homogeneous fields, and show how preheating is efficient in producing these quanta. Preheating of other particle species w ill be model dependent, and in order to investigate this we consider a real istic working model of supersymmetric hybrid inflation which solves the str ong-CP problem via an approximate Peccei-Quinn symmetry, which was proposed by us previously. We study axion production in this model and show that pr operly taking into account the mixing between the fields suppresses the axi on production, yet enhances the production of other particles. Finally we d emonstrate the importance of back reaction effects in this model which have the effect of shutting off axion production, leaving the axion safely with in experimental bounds. [S0556-2821(99)05220-0].