Related papers: Eternal Inflation
We discuss the large-scale structure of the universe in inflationary cosmology and the implications that it may have for the long-term future of civilizations. Although each civilization is doomed to perish, it may be possible to transmit…
The inflationary scenario has become the paradigm of early universe cosmology, and - in conjuction with ideas from superstring theory - has led to speculations about an "inflationary multiverse". From a point of view of phenomenology, the…
We contrast the possibility of inflation starting a) from the universe's inception or b) from an earlier non-inflationary state. Neither case is ideal since a) assumes quantum mechanical reasoning is straightforwardly applicable to the…
The idea that the universe might be open is an old one, and the possibility of having an open universe arise form inflation is not new either. However, a concrete realization of a consistent single-bubble open inflation model is known only…
There is very strong circumstantial evidence that there was an inflationary epoch very early in the history of the universe. In this lecture I will describe how we might be able to piece together some understanding of the dynamics during…
In this review I briefly describe the evolution of the inflationary theory from the scenario based on the idea of supercooling and expansion in the false vacuum toward the theory of eternally expanding self-reproducing inflationary…
We consider the Standard Models of particle physics and hot big bang cosmology, and review the theoretical and experimental motivations for extending these models to include supersymmetry and inflation. An obvious extension would be to…
Models of cosmic inflation posit an early phase of accelerated expansion of the universe, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields in curved spacetime. Though detailed assumptions about fields and couplings vary across models,…
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…
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…
Inflationary cosmology explains the homogeneity and large-scale structure of the universe through a brief epoch of accelerated expansion following the Big Bang. Cyclic cosmologies, in contrast, describe a universe undergoing successive…
The world view suggested by quantum cosmology is that inflating universes with all possible values of the fundamental constants are spontaneously created out of nothing. I explore the consequences of the assumption that we are a `typical'…
The usual theory of inflation breaks down in eternal inflation. We derive a dual description of eternal inflation in terms of a deformed Euclidean CFT located at the threshold of eternal inflation. The partition function gives the amplitude…
We argue that the total number of distinguishable locally Friedmann universes generated by eternal inflation is proportional to the exponent of the entropy of inflationary perturbations and is limited by e^{e^{3 N}}, where N is the number…
In the primordial universe, fields with mass much larger than the mass-scale of the event-horizon (such as the Hubble parameter in inflation) exist ubiquitously, and can be excited from time to time and oscillate quickly around their…
A model of nonlinear electrodynamics with a dimensional parameter $\beta$ is considered. Electromagnetic fields are the source of the gravitation field and inflation of the universe. We imply that the universe is filled by stochastic…
In this paper we present an informal description of the Cyclic Inflation scenario which allows our universe to "start" with a negative potential energy, inflate, and then gracefully exit to a positive potential energy universe. We discuss…
The possibility that the non-minimal coupling inflation could be eternal is investigated. We calculate the quantum fluctuation of the inflaton in a Hubble time and find that it has the same value as in the minimal case in the slow-roll…
We suggest that spontaneous eternal inflation can provide a natural explanation for the thermodynamic arrow of time, and discuss the underlying assumptions and consequences of this view. In the absence of inflation, we argue that systems…
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…