  The reheating process for the inflationary scenario is investigated
phenomenologically. The decay of the oscillating massive inflaton field into
light bosons is modeled after an out of equilibrium mixture of interacting
fluids within the framework of irreversible thermodynamics. Self-consistent,
analytic results for the evolution of the main macroscopic magnitudes like
temperature and particle number densities are obtained. The models for linear
and quadratic decay rates are investigated in the quasiperfect regime. The
linear model is shown to reheat very slowly while the quadratic one is shown to
yield explosive particle and entropy production. The maximum reheating
temperature is reached much faster and its magnitude is comparable with the
inflaton mass.
