Warming up Cosmic Inflation: Its Intricacies and Advantages

Warm Inflation is an alternate inflationary scenario in which the inflation field continues to dissipate its energy to a concurrent subdominant radiation bath through its couplings to other degrees of freedom. Warm inflation, unlike the standard inflationary scenario, can smoothly transition to a radiation dominated epoch without invoking a need for a post-inflationary reheating phase. The dynamics of Warm Inflation is more complex than the standard Cold Inflation, and requires knowledge of Thermal Field Theory, Non- equilibrium Quantum Field Theory as well as numerical techniques to determine the nature of the primordial perturbations generated through Warm Inflation.

The first week of the workshop will be dedicated to a "School on Warm Inflation", where lectures on basics of advanced topics like Thermal Field Theory and Non-equilibrium Quantum Field Theory as well as the dynamics of Warm Inflation including the cosmological perturbation theory will be given by the experts in the field.

The aim of this School is to provide training in these advanced topics, enabling participants to independently pursue research in warm inflation. The School will be held from 20–26 July 2026. The School will be followed by a dedicated workshop on warm inflation from 27–31 July 2026 for researchers active in the field.

Topics to be covered in the School:
1. Thermal Field Theory: Palash Baran Pal
2. Non-equilibrium Quantum Field Theory in Warm Inflation: Suddhasattwa Brahma & Rudnei O. Ramos
3. Cosmological Perturbation Theory in Warm Inflation: Mar Bastero-gil
4. Warm Inflation model building: TBD
5. CMB observations: L Sriramkumar

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20-31 July 2026
Ashoka University, Sonepat