First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation
Abstract
The eternal inflation scenario predicts that our observable universe resides inside a single bubble embedded in a vast inflating multiverse. We present the first observational tests of eternal inflation, performing a search for cosmological signatures of collisions with other bubble universes in cosmic microwave background data from the WMAP satellite. We conclude that the WMAP 7-year data do not warrant augmenting LCDM with bubble collisions, constraining the average number of detectable bubble collisions on the full sky to be less than 1.6 at 68% CL. Data from the Planck satellite can be used to more definitively test the bubble collision hypothesis.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1012.1995,
title = {First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation},
author = {Stephen M. Feeney and Matthew C. Johnson and Daniel J. Mortlock and Hiranya V. Peiris},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1012.1995},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
Companion to arXiv:1012.3667. 5 pages, 2 figures. v3: replaced with version accepted by PRL. Significant extensions to the Bayesian pipeline to do the full-sky non-Gaussian source detection problem (previously restricted to patches). Note that this has changed the normalization of evidence values reported previously, as full-sky priors are now employed, but the conclusions remain unchanged