@Forge any system will try and settle into its lowest energy state. The potential curve shows the energy of the inflaton field as a function of some vaguely defined field variable, and the inflaton field will try to settle into the minimum of this curve.
But the inflaton field can only minimise its energy by transferring that energy to other particles i.e. the inflaton field decays to produce particles like electrons, quarks etc. So moving towards the minimum means the field is decaying.
The rate of decay is related to the steepness of the curve. To give a simple analogy, a ball rolling down a hill is also trying to settle into the minimum energy state, and the steeper the hill the faster the ball rolls. likewise the steeper the inflaton potential curve the faster it will decay to regular particles.
So on the plateau the inflaton field decays only slowly i.e. the decay probability is small. On the steep section the field decays fast i.e. the decay probability is high.
@Korra same answer as to your last question about perturbation theory: It depends :P
As Wiki says, you need to compare the strength of the spin-orbit interaction to the strength of the magnetic field interaction. The field is "weak" when the former is much stronger.
@JohnRennie βThis rolling down a potential describes what happens to the field as it is diluted by the expansion of space.β
Iβm a little confused.
Does this rolling down a potential curve describe how the field is diluted by the expansion, or does it describe how the field try to settle into its lowest energy state by decaying into SM particles?
I'm Australian, and we generally say "zed" rather than "zee", too. Although TV programs like Sesame Street have had a bit of impact on stuff like that.
american authors, British publisher (Nielsen & Chuang)
@PM2Ring I'm not a native speaker and I don't remember what I was taught in school, I don't know why I'm unreasonably annoyed by the american pronunciation
Fair enough. If you want to jump into the conversation though you will have to indicate on how many of those downvotes you also left a comment giving exact detail as to why you down voted :P
In the second part of the question I posted ... Why I can't put x = y = z ? Using AM GM inequality. Though in this case I know it is a plane so its value will be normal distance of plane from origin But why AM GM inequality not work ?
I flagged in review a submission as "not an answer" (NAA) on this Q&A: What does $H\parallel ab$ mean?
At least one person appears to have agreed with me, and, since it was in the review queue, I think someone before that must have flagged it.
Rob came after an added a comment, "While this post m...