English

Inflation, phase transitions and the cosmological constant

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2021-12-08 v3

Abstract

Cosmological phase transitions are thought to have taken place at the early Universe imprinting their properties on the observable Universe. There is strong evidence that, through the dynamics of a scalar field that lead a second order phase transition, inflation shaped the Universe accounting for the most conspicuous features of the observed Universe. It is argued that inflation has also striking implications for the vacuum energy. Considerations for subsequent second order phase transitions are also discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.09456,
  title  = {Inflation, phase transitions and the cosmological constant},
  author = {Orfeu Bertolami},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.09456},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

9 pages. Version to match to one to be published in General Relativity and Gravitation

R2 v1 2026-06-23T23:17:44.481Z