Abstract
Inflation enlarges the size of the universe by an enormous factor, so we can observe only a tiny part of it.
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Notes
- 1.
In a “topless” model, having a potential energy landscape like the one shown in Fig. 17.8, the hill gets steeper at higher altitudes, so the classical force pushing the inflaton field downwards gets stronger. But Andrei Linde has shown that the strength of quantum kicks increases with altitude even faster. Thus, if the inflaton field starts out at high enough elevation, quantum kicks become the dominant force, and the field undergoes a quantum random walk, until it gets to a sufficiently low level and rolls classically downhill.
- 2.
By the end of inflation the bubble universe becomes nearly flat, so its curvature is very difficult to observe.
- 3.
If you want to meet some of your duplicates, there is a problem: your nearest cosmic clone lives about \(10^{{10^{90} }}\) m away. Another issue is that clones who are identical at this time will not remain so, because their subsequent evolution is influenced by random quantum processes.
- 4.
We assume here that tunneling from a given vacuum is possible only to a neighboring vacuum in the landscape; hence it is not possible to tunnel from A to D.
- 5.
Tunneling up from zero and negative energy vacuum states is impossible. We note, however, that such tunneling may occur from zero or negative energy bubbles, if they have inflation or matter dominated periods at the early stages of their evolution (which temporarily increases their overall energy density above the vacuum value of zero or less).
- 6.
Even though bubbles collapse as viewed from outside, their interiors are filled with a high-energy vacuum and continue to inflate. In a two-dimensional analogy, the resulting geometry can be pictured as an inflating balloon, which is connected to a flat exterior region by a thin “throat”. The throat is seen as a black hole from outside. Thus, black holes formed in this way contain inflating universes inside.
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Perlov, D., Vilenkin, A. (2017). Eternal Inflation. In: Cosmology for the Curious. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57040-2_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57040-2_18
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