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Inflation: Process
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At the end of inflation, a process called reheating occurs, in which the inflaton particles decay into the radiation that starts the hot big bang. It is not known how long inflation lasted but it is usually thought to be extremely short compared to the age of the universe. Assuming that the energy scale of inflation is between 1015 and 1016 GeV, as is suggested by the simplest models, the period of inflation responsible for the observable universe probably lasted roughly 10-33 seconds.[7]
KEY DETAILS: The bill would require finance officials to build inflation into spending projections in budget forecasts, as they now do for tax collections. That was the standard practice until 2002, when lawmakers facing budget problems passed legislation to ignore inflation and, in the process, make a projected deficit appear smaller.
The end of inflation is called reheating or thermalization because the large potential energy decays into particles and fills the universe with radiation. Because the nature of the inflaton is not known, this process is still poorly understood, although it is believed to take place through a parametric resonance.[67][68]
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