  In the modulated reheating scenario, the field that drives inflation has a
spatially varying decay rate, and the resulting inhomogeneous reheating process
generates adiabatic perturbations. We examine the statistical properties of the
density perturbations generated in this scenario. Unlike earlier analyses, we
include the dynamics of the field that determines the inflaton decay rate. We
show that the dynamics of this modulus field can significantly alter the
amplitude of the power spectrum and the bispectrum, even if the modulus field
has a simple potential and its effective mass is smaller than the Hubble rate.
In some cases, the evolution of the modulus amplifies the non-Gaussianity of
the perturbations to levels that are excluded by recent observations of the
cosmic microwave background. Therefore, a proper treatment of the modulus
dynamics is required to accurately calculate the statistical properties of the
perturbations generated by modulated reheating.
