Related papers: Observable Signatures of a Classical Transition
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…
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…
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…
Inflation has by-far set itself as one of the prime ideas in the current cosmological models that seemingly has an answer for every observed phenomenon in cosmology. More importantly, it serves as a bridge between the early quantum…
It seems generic to have vacua with lower dimensionality than ours. We consider the possibility that the observable universe originated in a transition from one of these vacua. Such a universe has anisotropic spatial curvature. This may be…
We argue that in the context of eternal inflation in the landscape, making predictions for cosmological -- and possibly particle physics -- observables requires a measure on the possible cosmological histories as opposed to one on the vacua…
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.…
During eternal inflation, a landscape of vacua can be populated by the nucleation of bubbles. These bubbles inevitably collide, and collisions sometimes displace the field into a new minimum in a process known as a classical transition. In…
According to the inflationary scenario of cosmology, all structure in the Universe can be traced back to primordial fluctuations during an accelerated (inflationary) phase of the very early Universe. A conceptual problem arises due to the…
According to the inflationary scenario for the very early Universe, all inhomogeneities in the Universe are of genuine quantum origin. On the other hand, looking at these inhomogeneities and measuring them, clearly no specific quantum…
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…
Detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate the large-scale homogeneity of the universe. On very small scales, we observe however inhomogeneities such as galaxies, stars, planets and ourselves. In the context of hot…
We review the dynamics of spectator scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity in the post-inflationary Universe, with particular emphasis on scenarios where the end of inflation is followed by a period of kination. In this context, the…
Cosmological phase transitions are thought to have taken place at the early Universe imprinting their properties on the observable Universe. There is strong evidence that, through the dynamics of a scalar field that lead a second order…
Cosmic inflation provides a window to the highest energy densities accessible in nature, far beyond those achievable in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Theoretical insights into the inflationary era and its observational probes may…
In a quantum theory of cosmology spacetime behaves classically only in limited patches of the configuration space on which the wave function of the universe is defined. Quantum transitions can connect classical evolution in different…
According to the inflationary scenario, all structure in the Universe can be traced back to quantum fluctuations of the metric and scalar field(s) during inflation. The seeds of this structure can be observed as classical anisotropies in…
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 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…