Related papers: Odds of observing the multiverse
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. It is argued that essentially all inflationary models lead to (future-)eternal…
An appealing theory is that our current patch of universe was born as a nucleation bubble from a phase of false vacuum eternal inflation. We search for evidence for this theory by looking for the signal imprinted on the CMB that is…
In this paper we study possible observational consequences of the bouncing cosmology. We consider a model where a phase of inflation is preceded by a cosmic bounce. While we consider in this paper only that the bounce is due to loop quantum…
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
Inflation in the early Universe is one of the most promising probes of gravity in the high-energy regime. However, observable scales give access to a limited window in the inflationary dynamics. In this essay, we argue that quantum…
We use the stochastic approach to investigate the measure for slow roll eternal inflation. The probability for the universe of a given Hubble radius can be calculated in this framework. In a solvable model, it is shown that the probability…
In the primordial universe, fields with mass much larger than the mass-scale of the event-horizon (such as the Hubble parameter in inflation) exist ubiquitously, and can be excited from time to time and oscillate quickly around their…
In the context of the open inflationary universe, we calculate the amplitude of quantum fluctuations which deform the bubble shape. These give rise to scalar field fluctuations in the open Friedman-Robertson-Walker universe which is…
We calculate the probability distribution for the volume of the Universe after slow-roll inflation both in the eternal and in the non-eternal regime. Far from the eternal regime the probability distribution for the number of e-foldings,…
An anthropic understanding of the cosmological constant requires that the vacuum energy at late time scans from one patch of the universe to another. If the vacuum energy during inflation also scans, the various patches of the universe…
The fluctuations in the inflaton field at the end of inflation which seed the density perturbations are prepared in a pure quantum state. It is generally assumed that some physics causes this pure state to decohere so that it should be…
Observations of the cosmic microwave sky are revealing the primordial non-uniformities from which all structure in the Universe grew. The only known physical mechanism for generating the inhomogeneities we see involves the amplification of…
Inflation is a bold and expansive extension of the Standard Cosmology. It holds the promise to extend our understanding of the Universe to within 10^{-32}sec of the big bang and answer most of the pressing questions in cosmology. Its…
Recent results from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments verify several of the predictions of inflation, while ruling out a number of alternative structure-formation scenarios. Given the successes of the theory, the obvious next…
Collisions between cosmic bubbles of different vacua are a generic feature of false vacuum eternal inflation scenarios. While previous studies have focused on the consequences of a single collision event in an observer's past, we begin here…
Measurements of the Higgs boson and top quark masses indicate that the Standard Model Higgs potential becomes unstable around $\Lambda_I \sim 10^{11}$ GeV. This instability is cosmologically relevant since quantum fluctuations during…
We compute the probability distribution of the invariant separation between nucleation centers of colliding true vacuum bubbles arising from the decay of a false de Sitter space vacuum. We find that even in the limit of a very small…
If the current acceleration of our Universe is due to a cosmological constant, then a Coleman-De Luccia bubble will nucleate in our Universe. In this work, we consider that our observations could be likely in this framework, consisting in…
We propose a method to extract predictions from quantum cosmology for inflation that can be confronted with observations. Employing the tunneling boundary condition in quantum geometrodynamics, we derive a probability distribution for the…
We present an interpretation of the physics of space-times undergoing eternal inflation by repeated nucleation of bubbles. In many cases the physics can be interpreted in terms of the quantum mechanics of a system with a finite number of…