Related papers: A Note on Boltzmann Brains
Many modern cosmological scenarios feature large volumes of spacetime in a de Sitter vacuum phase. Such models are said to be faced with a "Boltzmann Brain problem" - the overwhelming majority of observers with fixed local conditions are…
To make predictions for an eternally inflating "multiverse", one must adopt a procedure for regulating its divergent spacetime volume. Recently, a new test of such spacetime measures has emerged: normal observers - who evolve in pocket…
Eternally inflating universes lead to an infinite number of Boltzmann brains but also an infinite number of ordinary observers. If we use the scale factor measure to regularize these infinities, the ordinary observers dominate the Boltzmann…
"Boltzmann brains" are human brains that arise as thermal or quantum fluctuations and last at least long enough to think a few thoughts. In many scenarios involving universes of infinite size or duration, Boltzmann brains are infinitely…
The standard $\Lambda$CDM model provides an excellent fit to current cosmological observations but suffers from a potentially serious Boltzmann Brain problem. If the universe enters a de Sitter vacuum phase that is truly eternal, there will…
Most versions of classical physics imply that if the 4-volume of the entire space-time is infinite or at least extremely large, then random fluctuations in the matter will by coincidence create copies of us in remote places, so called…
In a spatially infinite and eternal universe approaching ultimately a de Sitter (or quasi-de Sitter) regime, structure can form by thermal fluctuations as such a space is thermal. The models of Dark Energy invoking holographic principle fit…
Linde in hep-th/0611043 shows that some (though not all) versions of the global (volume-weighted) description avoid the "Boltzmann brain" problem raised in hep-th/0610079 if the universe does not have a decay time less than 20 Gyr. Here I…
Depending on the type and arrangement of metastable vacua in the theory, initial conditions in a de Sitter vacuum with arbitrarily large entropy can be compatible with the observed arrow of time, if the causal patch or related measures are…
A perceived problem with the standard flat-lambda model is that in the far future spacetime becomes an exponentially expanding de Sitter space, filled with Gibbons-Hawking thermal radiation, and given infinite time there will appear an…
Some modern cosmological models predict the appearance of Boltzmann Brains: observers who randomly fluctuate out of a thermal bath rather than naturally evolving from a low-entropy Big Bang. A theory in which most observers are of the…
We consider the well-known Boltzmann brains problem in frames of simple phantom energy models with little rip and big rip singularity. It is showed that these models (i) satisfy to observational data and (ii) may be free from Boltzmann…
Cosmology might turn out to be the study of fluctuations around a "de Sitter equilibrium" state. In this article I review the basic ideas and the attractive features of this framework, and respond to a number common questions raised about…
Are your perceptions, memories and observational data, a statistical fluctuation out of the thermal equilibrium of the universe, having no correlation with the actual past state of the universe? Arguments are given in the literature for and…
Unless our universe is decaying at an astronomical rate (i.e., on the present cosmological timescale of Gigayears, rather than on the quantum recurrence timescale of googolplexes), it would apparently produce an infinite number of observers…
We argue that, under certain plausible assumptions, de Sitter space settles into a quiescent vacuum in which there are no dynamical quantum fluctuations. Such fluctuations require either an evolving microstate, or time-dependent histories…
We consider a model quantum field theory with a scalar quantum field in de Sitter space-time in a Bohmian version with a field ontology, i.e., an actual field configuration $\varphi({\bf x},t)$ guided by a wave function on the space of…
If the universe expands exponentially without end, ``ordinary observers'' like ourselves may be vastly outnumbered by ``Boltzmann's brains,'' transient observers who briefly flicker into existence as a result of quantum or thermal…
Vacuum decay in de Sitter space is a process of great physical interest, as it allows to rule out cosmological models in the early and current Universe. Its rate may be described in terms of an instanton in Euclidean space called bounce and…
Perturbative gravity about a de Sitter background motivates a global picture of quantum dynamics in `eternal de Sitter space,' the theory of states which are asymptotically de Sitter to both future and past. Eternal de Sitter physics is…