Reheating temperature ($T_R$)

The reheating temperature characterizes the thermal radiation bath after energy from a nonthermal component has been transferred and thermalized. For sudden decay of a dominant nonrelativistic relic, $T_R\simeq [3M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2{\Gamma }^2/(c_2{g}_{\star }){]}^{1/4}$. It differs from the residual radiation temperature immediately before decay.

For a quartic inflaton potential, an endpoint field of order the unreduced Planck mass leaves density of order $\lambda M_P^4$. If prompt, efficient reheating converts it to equilibrium radiation, $\rho =({\pi }^2/30)g_{\ast }{T}_R^4$ gives the displayed scaling. With the potential-only endpoint estimate ${\varphi }_e=M_P/\sqrt{\pi }$, the coefficient is $[15/(2{\pi }^4){]}^{1/4}$. End-of-inflation kinetic energy changes that coefficient by order one, and delayed transfer or incomplete thermalization requires a reheating model rather than the potential alone.