Gravitational production of dark matter in the Peebles-Vilenkin model

Abstract: The gravitational production of superheavy dark matter, in the Peebles-Vilenkin quintessential inflation model, is studied in two different scenarios: When the particles, whose decay products reheat the universe after the end of the inflationary period, are created gravitationally, and when are produced via instant preheating. We show that the viability of both scenarios requires that the mass of the superheavy dark matter to be approximately between 10^{16} and 10^{17} GeV.