Related papers: Future Foam
In some well-known scenarios of open-universe eternal inflation, developed by Vilenkin and co-workers, a large number of universes nucleate and thermalize within the eternally inflating mega-universe. According to the proposal, each…
We discuss the large-scale structure of the universe in inflationary cosmology and the implications that it may have for the long-term future of civilizations. Although each civilization is doomed to perish, it may be possible to transmit…
We study collisions between pairs of bubbles nucleated in an ambient false vacuum. For the first time, we include the effects of small initial (quantum) fluctuations around the instanton profiles describing the most likely initial bubble…
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…
We investigate higher dimensional cosmological models in the semiclassical approximation with Hartle-Hawking Boundary conditions, assuming a gravitational action which is described by the scalar curvature with a cosmological constant. In…
A new model of the observed universe, using solutions to the full Einstein equations, is developed from the hypothesis that our observable universe is an underdense bubble, with an internally inhomogeneous fractal bubble distribution of…
Observational consequences of inflationary cosmology in the holographic dual of the Randall-Sundrum type II braneworld scenario, as motivated by the AdS/CFT correspondence, are investigated. High energy corrections to the standard…
We analyze the cosmological signatures visible to an observer in a Coleman-de Luccia bubble when another such bubble collides with it. We use a gluing procedure to generalize the results of Freivogel, Horowitz, and Shenker to the case of a…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. The mechanisms that lead to eternal inflation in both new and chaotic models are…
Numerical relativity simulations provide a means by which to study the evolution and end point of strong over-densities in cosmological spacetimes. Specific applications include studies of primordial black hole formation and the robustness…
In holographic duality an eternal AdS black hole is described by two copies of the boundary CFT in the thermal field double state. In this paper we provide explicit constructions in the boundary theory of infalling time evolutions which can…
Closed string tachyon condensation in spacetime generates potentials on the worldsheet that model two-dimensional inflationary cosmology. These models illustrate and elucidate a variety of aspects of inflation, in particular the generation…
We establish results on the dynamics of interacting charged null fluids in general relativity, specifically in the context of the bouncing continuation proposed in [Ori91]. In this model - the setting for a number of prominent case studies…
In holographic duality an eternal AdS black hole is described by two copies of the boundary CFT in the thermal field double state. This identification has many puzzles, including the boundary descriptions of the event horizons, the…
Since the advent of inflation, several theorems have been proven suggesting that although inflation can (and generically does) continue eternally into the future, it cannot be extended eternally into the past to create a ``steady-state''…
Is the universe finite or infinite, and what shape does it have? These fundamental questions, of which relatively little is known, are typically studied within the context of the standard model of cosmology where the universe is assumed to…
The four-form field recently considered by Hawking and Turok couples naturally to a charged membrane, across which the effective cosmological constant has a discontinuity. We present instantons for the creation of an open inflationary…
We discuss cosmological models for an eternal universe. Physical observables show no singularity from the infinite past to the infinite future. While the universe is evolving, there is no beginning and no end - the universe exists forever.…
Holographic space-time, a theory of quantum gravity that generalizes string theory and quantum field theory, predicts black holes in the early matter-dominated era of its models of inflation. Before these black holes can decay, there is a…
The theory of eternal inflation in an inflaton potential with multiple vacua predicts that our universe is one of many bubble universes nucleating and growing inside an ever-expanding false vacuum. The collision of our bubble with another…