Can the inflaton be detected? Does it interact with the other fields? In a recent article it is claimed that dark energy can actually be a new manifestation of the inflaton field at electroweak scales. This subject is pretty far from my area of expertise (if there is any).
So my question are:


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*The inflaton field is supposed to have become weaker, but I dont think anybody has claimed it has ceased to exist. If it happens to be the same as dark energy, it not only will still be out there, but my guess is that it will be at detectable energies. Is this correct?

*I could not find whether the inflaton is supposed to interact with any other known fields. If so, is there any reason it could not be detected in particle physics experiments? Could its detection (and measured characteristics) potentially solve the nature of dark energy?
 A: The inflaton certainly interacts with SM fields. During inflation, the energy density of the Universe is dominated by the potential energy of the infaton and the Universe cools. At the end of inflation, the inflaton should decay to ordinary particles (electrons, photons etc.) in a process known as reheating. After reheating, the big bang begins in earnest. Inflation is an "add-on" that improves the big bang theory.
The inflaton is a quantum field - i.e. a field of particles, though many problems and calculations in inflation are entirely classical. This is why you hear that the field becomes "weaker."
In principle, an excitation of the inflaton field could be detected in laboratory experiments, similar to the discovery of the Higgs boson two years ago at the LHC. In most models, however, the inflaton is very massive, at least $10^{10}$ times heavier than the Higgs boson, and we don't have the energy to excite the field. There are, however, models in which the inflaton is light, such as Higgs inflation in which the inflaton is the Higgs, but these models might have been ruled out by the BICEP experiment.
