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A smooth exit from eternal inflation?

  • Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
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  • Published: 27 April 2018
  • volume 2018, Article number: 147 (2018)
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A smooth exit from eternal inflation?
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  • S. W. Hawking1 &
  • Thomas Hertog2 
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A preprint version of the article is available at arXiv.

Abstract

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 of different geometries of the threshold surface in the no-boundary state. Its local and global behavior in dual toy models shows that the amplitude is low for surfaces which are not nearly conformal to the round three-sphere and essentially zero for surfaces with negative curvature. Based on this we conjecture that the exit from eternal inflation does not produce an infinite fractal-like multiverse, but is finite and reasonably smooth.

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Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DAMTP, CMS, Wilberforce Road, CB3 0WA, Cambridge, U.K.

    S. W. Hawking

  2. Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001, Leuven, Belgium

    Thomas Hertog

Authors
  1. S. W. Hawking
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  2. Thomas Hertog
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Correspondence to Thomas Hertog.

Additional information

ArXiv ePrint: 1707.07702

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Cite this article

Hawking, S.W., Hertog, T. A smooth exit from eternal inflation?. J. High Energ. Phys. 2018, 147 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2018)147

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  • Received: 20 April 2018

  • Accepted: 20 April 2018

  • Published: 27 April 2018

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2018)147

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Keywords

  • AdS-CFT Correspondence
  • Gauge-gravity correspondence
  • Models of Quantum Gravity
  • Spacetime Singularities
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