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We shortly review the implications of supersymmetric flat directions for post-inflationary cosmology. Beside providing a mechanism for baryogenesis à la Affleck and Dine, the large vacuum expectation values (VEVs) of fields along MSSM flat directions could play an important role during thermalization. If they decay after the inflaton, they could in principle delay reheating or even come to dominate the energy density of the entire universe. The cosmological fate of flat directions is therefore of primary importance in determining the value of the reheat temperature, which sets the initial conditions for standard Hot Big Bang cosmology. We review the evolution of these condensates during the early universe, governed by an effective potential arising from Supersymmetry breaking and non-renormalizable terms. A consequence of the resulting motion of flat direction’s VEVs is its non-perturbative decay, in a mechanism similar to inflationary preheating. The time scale of this decay is much shorter than the timescale for decay of a gravitationally coupled inflaton and, consequently, flat directions will not delay thermalization.

Flat Directions in the Early Universe: Birth Life and Death