| Abstract: | Irreversible matter creation is investigated in a two-component (scalar field and ordinary matter) cosmological fluid in a
homogeneous spatially flat and isotropic Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) inflationary Universe during its reheating era.
The thermodynamics of open systems as applied together with the gravitational field equations to the two-component cosmological
fluid leads to a generalisation of the elementary reheating theory in which the decay (creation) pressures are explicitly
considered as parts of the fluid stress-energy tensor. Particular models describing coherently oscillating scalar waves and
leading to a high particle production at the beginning of the oscillatory period are considered too.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
