Related papers: First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation
In the picture of eternal inflation, our observable universe resides inside a single bubble nucleated from an inflating false vacuum. Many of the theories giving rise to eternal inflation predict that we have causal access to collisions…
In the picture of eternal inflation as driven by a scalar potential with multiple minima, our observable universe resides inside one of many bubbles formed from transitions out of a false vacuum. These bubbles necessarily collide, upsetting…
Eternal inflation predicts our observable universe lies within a bubble (or pocket universe) embedded in a volume of inflating space. The interior of the bubble undergoes inflation and standard cosmology, while the bubble walls expand…
Cosmic bubble collisions provide an important possible observational window on the dynamics of eternal inflation. In eternal inflation, our observable universe is contained in one of many bubbles formed from an inflating metastable vacuum.…
We forecast the ability of cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization datasets to constrain theories of eternal inflation using cosmic bubble collisions. Using the Fisher matrix formalism, we determine both the overall…
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…
To compute the spectrum of bubble collisions seen by an observer in an eternally-inflating multiverse, one must choose a measure over the diverging spacetime volume, including choosing an "initial" hypersurface below which there are no…
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…
Eternal inflation is a seemingly generic consequence of theories that give rise to accelerated expansion of the universe and possess multiple vacuum states. Making predictions in an eternally inflating universe is notoriously difficult…
We evaluate the possibility of observable effects arising from collisions between vacuum bubbles in a universe undergoing false-vacuum eternal inflation. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that under certain assumptions most positions…
We compute the probability distribution for bubble collisions in an inflating false vacuum which decays by bubble nucleation. Our analysis generalizes previous work of Guth, Garriga, and Vilenkin to the case of general cosmological…
We revisit an inflationary scenario in which primordial inhomogeneities arise from a quantum collapse, a stochastic mechanism described in the context of quantum collapse theories in its continuous version and within semiclassical gravity.…
Motivated by the lessons of black hole complementarity, we develop a causal patch description of eternal inflation. We argue that an observer cannot ascribe a semiclassical geometry to regions outside his horizon, because the large-scale…
I present a brief review of astro-ph/0406099, which argues that there is a limit on the number of efolds of inflation which are observable in a universe which undergoes an eternally accelerated expansion in the future. Such an acceleration…
A number of well-motivated extensions of the LCDM concordance cosmological model postulate the existence of a population of sources embedded in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). One such example is the signature of cosmic bubble…
A ``bubble universe'' nucleating in an eternally inflating false vacuum will experience, in the course of its expansion, collisions with an infinite number of other bubbles. In an idealized model, we calculate the rate of collisions around…
An epoch of accelerated expansion, or inflation, in the early universe solves several cosmological problems. While there are many models of inflation only recently has it become possible to discriminate between some of the models using…
This is the third paper in a series establishing a quantitative relation between inflationary scalar field potential landscapes and the relic perturbations left by the collision between bubbles produced during eternal inflation. We…
Inflation creates large-scale cosmological density perturbations that are characterized by an isotropic, homogeneous, and Gaussian random distribution about a locally flat background. Even in a flat universe, the spatial curvature measured…
Observing the relics of collisions between bubble universes would provide direct evidence for the existence of an eternally inflating Multiverse; the non-observation of such events can also provide important constraints on inflationary…