Abstract

In a recent paper Damour and Mukhanov described a scenario where inflation may continue during the oscillatory phase. This effect is possible because the scalar field spends a significant fraction of each period of oscillation on the upper part of the potential. Such an additional period of inflation could push perturbations after the slow roll regime to observable scales. Although in this work we show that the small region of the Damour-Mukhanov parameter q gives the main contribution to oscillating inflation, it was not satisfactorily understood until now. Furthermore, it gives an expression for the energy density spectrum of perturbations, which is well behaved in the whole physical range of q. ©1999 The American Physical Society.