Related papers: Stability of Flat Space to Singular Instantons
Quantum fluctuation of unstable modes about gravitational instantons causes the instability of flat space at finite temperature, leading to the spontaneous process of nucleating quantum black holes. The density of vacuum energy-gain in such…
The evolution of weak discontinuity is investigated in the flat FRW universe with a single scalar field and with multiple scalar fields. We consider both massless scalar fields and scalar fields with exponential potentials. Then we find…
Based on an earlier introduced new class of generalized gravity-matter models defined in terms of two independent non-Riemannian volume forms (alternative generally covariant integration measure densities) on the space-time manifold, we…
We identify infinite classes of potentials for which the Coleman instantons do not exist. For these potentials, the decay of a false vacuum must be described by the new instantons introduced in [7,8].
We perform a semi-classical analysis of the Emergent Universe scenario for inflation. Fixing the background, and taking the inflaton to be homogenous, we cast the inflaton's evolution as a one-dimensional quantum mechanics problem. We find…
Inflationary models are generally credited with explaining the large scale homogeneity, isotropy, and flatness of our universe as well as accounting for the origin of structure (i.e., the deviations from exact homogeneity) in our universe.…
Within the context of finding the initial conditions of the universe we consider gravitational instantons falling into the Bianchi IX classification. That is, a Euclidean four-manifold with a metric that satisfies Einstein's equations with…
The open inflation model recently proposed by Hawking and Turok is investigated in scalar-tensor gravity context. If the dilaton-like field has no potential, the instanton of our model is singular but has a finite action. The…
Axions play a central role in inflationary model building and other cosmological applications. This is mainly due to their flat potential, which is protected by a global shift symmetry. However, quantum gravity is known to break global…
We investigate de Sitter solutions of $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity with an F-term scalar potential near a no-scale Minkowski point, as they may in particular arise from flux compactifications in string theory. We show that a large class of…
We prove that in the Hartle-Hawking approach to quantum cosmology the existence of an inflationary phase is a general property of minisuperspace models given by a closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe containing a massless scalar field…
We show using covariant techniques that the Einstein static universe containing a perfect fluid is always neutrally stable against small inhomogeneous vector and tensor perturbations and neutrally stable against adiabatic scalar density…
In this note, we revisit some well-known examples of instantons on flat space that were originally discovered in the physics literature. In particular, we explain how the basic instanton on $\mathbb{R}^4$, with its flat hyperkaehler…
Using numerical solutions of the full Einstein field equations coupled to a scalar inflaton field in 3+1 dimensions, we study the conditions under which a universe that is initially expanding, highly inhomogeneous and dominated by gradient…
Instantons, localised saddle points of the action, play an important role in describing non-perturbative aspects of quantum field theories, for example vacuum decay or violation of conservation laws associated with anomalous symmetries.…
We present a non-singular instanton describing the creation of an open universe with a compactified extra dimension. The four dimensional section of this solution is a singular instanton of the type introduced by Hawking and Turok. The…
We consider spatially averaged inhomogeneous universe models and argue that, already in the absence of sources, an effective scalar field arises through foliating and spatially averaging inhomogeneous geometrical curvature invariants of the…
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 propose a class of scalar models that, once coupled to gravity, lead to cosmologies that smoothly and stably connect an inflationary quasi-de Sitter universe to a low, or even zero-curvature, maximally symmetric spacetime in the…
We show by matching two flat spaces one in Minkowski coordinates ( empty space) and the other in Minkowski coordinates after a special conformal transformation (also empty space) through a bubble with positive and constant surface tension,…