Related papers: Eternal inflation in light of Wheeler-DeWitt equat…
Slow-roll inflation can become eternal if the quantum variance of the inflaton field around its slowly rolling classical trajectory is converted into a distribution of classical spacetimes inflating at different rates, and if the variance…
It was pointed out previously~\cite{Kinney:2014jya} that a sufficiently negative running of the spectral index of curvature perturbations from (ordinary i.e. cold) inflation is able to prevent eternal inflation from ever occurring. Here, we…
For slow-roll inflation we study the phase transition to the eternal regime. Starting from a finite inflationary volume, we consider the volume of the universe at reheating as order parameter. We show that there exists a critical value for…
It has been widely claimed that inflation is generically eternal to the future, even in models where the inflaton potential monotonically increases away from its minimum. The idea is that quantum fluctuations allow the field to jump uphill,…
Eternal inflation requires upward fluctuations of the energy in a Hubble volume, which appear to violate the energy conditions. In particular, a scalar field in an inflating spacetime should obey the averaged null energy condition, which…
We consider eternal inflation in hilltop-type inflation models, favored by current data, in which the scalar field in inflation rolls off of a local maximum of the potential. Unlike chaotic or plateau-type inflation models, in hilltop…
We consider the eternal inflation scenario of the slow-roll/chaotic type with the additional element of an objective collapse of the wave function. The incorporation of this new agent to the traditional inflationary setting might represent…
We obtain effective equations of inflationary dynamics for the mean inflaton and metric fields in the no-boundary and tunneling quantum states of the Universe. In the slow roll approximation (taking the form of the local Schwiger-DeWitt…
Eternal inflation is studied in the context of warm inflation. We focus on different tools to analyze the effects of dissipation and the presence of a thermal radiation bath on the fluctuation-dominated regime, for which the…
We study the details of eternal inflation in the presence of a spectator Higgs field within the framework of the minimal Standard Model. We have recently shown that in the presence of scalar field(s) which allow inflation only within a…
Eternal inflation is shown to require violations of the Null Energy Condition (NEC) on superhorizon scales. With light scalar fields as the matter sources in a de Sitter background, there can be no classical or semiclassical violations of…
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,…
Inflation with an inflection point potential is a popular model for producing primordial black holes. The potential near the inflection point is approximately flat, with a local maximum next to a local minimum, prone to eternal inflation.…
We consider a Lorentz-violating theory of inflation consisting of Einstein-aether theory with a scalar inflaton coupled bilinearly to the expansion of the aether. We determine the conditions for linearized stability, positive energy, and…
Inflation models can have an early phase of inflation where the evolution of the inflaton is driven by quantum fluctuations before entering the phase driven by the slope of the scalar field potential. For a Coleman-Weinberg potential this…
After reviewing the general ideas of quantum cosmology (Wheeler-DeWitt equation, boundary conditions, interpretation of $\psi$), I discuss how these ideas can be tested observationally. Observational predictions differ for different choices…
If the inflaton potential has multiple minima, as may be expected in, e.g., the string theory "landscape", inflation predicts a probability distribution for the cosmological parameters describing spatial curvature (Omega_tot), dark energy…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. I describe the quantum origin of density perturbations, giving a heuristic derivation of…
Starting from an initial state of thermal equilibrium, we derive an expression for the quantum fluctuation in the energy density during the inflationary epoch in terms of the mode functions for the inflaton field. The effect of this…
We study an inflationary scenario where thermal inflation is followed by fast-roll inflation. This is a rather generic possibility based on the effective potentials of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the context of particle physics models.…