Abstract
Inflation involves a period of rapid growth of the Universe. This is most easily illustrated by considering a homogeneous, isotropic Universe with a flat FriedmannRobertson―Walker (FRW) metric described by a scale factor a(t). Here, “rapid growth” means a positive value of ä/a = ―(4πGN/3)(ρ+3p) where ρ is the energy density and p the pressure. It is useful to identify the energy density driving inflation with some sort of scalar “potential” energy density V > 0 that is positive, and results in an effective equation of state \(\rho \simeq - p \simeq V\), which satisfies ä > 0. If one identifies the potential energy as arising from the potential of some scalar field ø, then ø is known as the inflaton field.
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Kolb, E.W., Abney, M., Copeland, E.J., Liddle, A.R., Lidsey, J.E. (1995). Reconstructing the Inflaton Potential. In: Kursunoglu, B.N., Mintz, S., Perlmutter, A. (eds) Unified Symmetry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1855-6_4
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