Related papers: Bubble collisions and measures of the multiverse
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.…
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…
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…
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…
We develop a set of controlled, analytic approximations to study the effects of bubble collisions on cosmology. We expand the initial perturbation to the inflaton field caused by the collision in a general power series, and determine its…
This paper is the third in a series investigating the possibility that if we reside in an inflationary "bubble universe", we might observe the effects of collisions with other such bubbles. Here, we study the interior structure of a bubble…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
In this work we study the imprints of bubble nucleation on primordial inflationary perturbations. We assume that the bubble is formed via the tunneling of a spectator field from the false vacuum of its potential to its true vacuum. We…
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…
An unresolved question in inflationary cosmology is the assignment of probabilities to different types of events that can occur in the eternally inflating multiverse. We explore the possibility that the resolution of this "measure problem"…
We extend our previous work on the cosmology of Coleman-de Luccia bubble collisions. Within a set of approximations we calculate the effects on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as seen from inside a bubble which has undergone such a…
We assess the effects of a collision between two vacuum bubbles in the thin-wall limit. After describing the outcome of a generic collision possessing the expected hyperbolic symmetry, we focus on collisions experienced by a bubble…
An unresolved question in inflationary cosmology is the assignment of probabilities to different types of events that can occur in the eternally inflating multiverse. We explore the possibility that the resolution of this "measure problem"…
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…
Our universe may have formed via bubble nucleation in an eternally-inflating background. Furthermore, the background may have a compact dimension--the modulus of which tunnels out of a metastable minimum during bubble nucleation--which…