Inflation Definition and 415 Threads

Assuming the situation where there is an infinite inflation stream, from which bubble universes are appearing in locally slowed regions. There could be many many such bubble universes and so very rare occurrences in some bubbles can sometimes happen. Also assumed, as is often postulated, that...

I know Encyclopaedia Inflationaris (ASPIC library) used the Jeffry scale/ Bayes factor to test various inflationary models but I'm also aware there was contention in that methodology. Does anyone know if the methodology is still being used or has it been replaced with a different methodology ?

After the news of Peter Higgs's death, I was thinking of the Higgs field and boson, how central they are to physics now, and the remaining mysteries associated with them. One such is the meaning of the mass actually observed for the Higgs boson. In the mainstream of theoretical physics, the...

This is from Modern Cosmology, Scott Dodelson, Chapter 6. For the part "Show that its energy density dilutes as ##a^{−3}##", following is my attempt: In the equation ##\frac{\partial \rho}{\partial t} = -3H(P+\rho)##, put ##P = \frac{1}{2} \dot{\phi}^2-V(\phi)## and ##\rho=\frac{1}{2}...

I understand inflation is thought to predict primordial gravitational waves although their strength is undetermined by the theory with some models of inflation predicting them to be strong and others so weak they can never be detected. However , this paper claims that if we detect a background...

I need the theoretical energy density of inflation for my story. I seem to recall it as an enormous 1095 ergs per cubic centimeter.

I am facing a problem while wanting ##\phi## dynamics in a cubic potential; ##g\phi^{3}##. The equation of motion I get for my case is(this follows from the usual Euler-Lagrange equations for ##\phi## in cosmology--Briefly discussed in Carol's Spacetime Geometry, inflation chapter)...

I know now that making a full on vacuum airship is unfeasible for it's compressive properties. So why not just make a rigid airship that is evacuated enough that the hydrogen is no longer significantly dangerous to it's surroundings, using say 25-30% density of neutral hydrogen? What's the...

Are the Big Bang and inflation really needed to account for the large-scale structure of the universe, nucleosynthesis, baryon acoustic oscillations, and the anisotropies of the CMB? Can the universe not begin in an already expanded state and still have all those things happen just the same...

Hello, In the Wikipedia article on "Inflaton" there appears the following formula: ##S=\int d^{4}x \sqrt{-g}[ \frac{1}{2}m^2_{P}R-\frac{1}{2}\partial^\mu\Phi\partial_{ \mu }\Phi-V(\Phi)-\frac{ 1 }{ 2}\xi R \Phi^]## with ##\xi## representing the strength of the interaction between R and...

I have recently studied the slow-roll inflation model. In it, slow-roll inflationary conditions are mentioned in a lot of places(these conditions needed to be satisfied for inflation to happen). I don't really understand the meaning and purpose of slow-roll inflation. I want to know a very...

Hi, I have some questions about the cosmic inflation. As I tried to find the answers, I got little more confused. I have mentioned all the quotes from relevant articles which I found confusing. I understand that there are quite a few questions but they are all related to each other and I...

Is it just waiting for empirical validation or are there still any corrections to do?

An analogy to understand Cosmic Inflation: If the universe grew in size from a subatomic size to the size of a tennis ball (or softball) in a tiny fraction of a second, then a football inflated at the same rate will grow to an approximate size of our solar system. Is this a correct analogy...

I am have some questions that have arisen while reading an old but interesting article by Andreas Albrecht [1] that cites an article by Andrei Linde in the 90s on cosmic inflation [2]...Albrecht's paper is related to his ideas on "clock ambiguity" in which he proposes that the laws of physics...

I've found highly cited papers that explains inflation with the Higgs as the inflaton and primordial black hole as the dark matter, for examples, These papers solve the inflation with the Higgs and Dark matter with PBH without introducing new particles. Primordial Black Hole production in...

How to determine whether a cosmological inflation model (say single-field slow-roll inflation) gracefully exit or not? Is it like showing that inflation is ending at some value of inflaton?

As I understand, the main theoretical virtue of Guth's inflation hypothesis is that it explains a bunch of otherwise hard-to-account-for phenomena under the standard big bang model without inflation: the Horizon Problem, the Flatness problem, the Monopole problem, and also the problem of how...

Hi all, I'm not a physics student (although I have a PhD in a different field) and so don't have the math, but I'm trying to interpret a key passage from Krauss' book 'A Universe from Nothing' where he is (trying?) to explain, in 'layman's terms', what Alan Guth termed 'the ultimate free lunch'...

It seems to me that gravitational waves are ignored when inflationary physics are described. I'm not very well read, and honestly do not know so much about most of the physics going on with inflation. Still, wave mechanics matter, harmonics matter, and it just seems intuitive to me that in order...

Among other things, inflation explains the horizon problem, as to why even though the proper distance between two antipodal points on the last scattering surface is greater than the horizon distance, and therefore causally disconnected, yet the two points have the same temperature. So is this...

In so far I know eternal inflation can only constraint the minimum duration that inflation happened to produce the properties of the universe we can experimentally test (a minimum of some 60 e-folds, or in time, at least some 10^-30 seconds), but as eternal inflation is generically eternal to...

I think this topic deserves its own thread after a few mini rants w/ feedback. Unless you've been living in a cave, you probably have noticed the price of goods and services rising in your daily life at a faster than normal pace. Sometimes it's not an inflation of price, but rather...

I am a bit confused regarding the concept of the horizon problem. I have studied that the background radiation data implies that the radiations were not in causal contact at the beginning of the universe as from the big bang model. I want to know that how inflation is solving that problem? To...

I have a payback for a project of 6 years without counting the inflation rate and discount rate. If the Payback is 6 years, how do you add an average yearly inflation rate of 2.10% and a discount rate of 5.75%?

At the footnote of the chapter "Large-Scale Structure of the Universe" in Julian Babour new book The Janus Point is this passage: "Besides a Janus-point origin, there are now several proposals—involving bouncing universes or ones that expand after a long quasi-stable period—in which the...

John A Wheeler proposed that the universe emerged from a primordial chaos (some sort of pre-geometry or pre-space) from where all physics emerged in the universe. I thought this could be interesting in the context of multiple universes. Therefore, has any well renowned physicist considered...

Cosmological inflationary models are general models in the sense that they could be applied to a variety of fundamental theories. Most physicists working in inflation assume that there is only one (but yet unknown) fundamental theory which through inflation would produce multiple regions or...

If it is known that such an equation exists, I would much appreciate seeing a link to a reference. If it is known that such an equation does not exist, I would much appreciate seeing a reference with an explanation of implications regarding the compatibility of general relativity with a...

As inflation happens, effectively, faster than the speed of light (between any given two points) and we can only see 14 billion years back, is it possible the data we need, to judge the age of the universe, is actually beyond our detection abilities. Could the age of the universe be greater...

I recall hearing once a very intuitive explanation as to why inflation is thought to lead to a nearly scale invariant power spectrum but i can't recall it. Can anyone offer an explanation that might help me? Why is it nearly scale invariant and not perfectly scale invariant? many thanks

The Big Bang is sometimes described as started from a singularity, which I have interpreted as meaning that its characteristics are undefineḍ. If that is the case, can we not even say that the Universe as a singularity was still infinite? Otherwise we are implying that the singularity was...

Hi, Is it true that measurement proves the universe has inflated by 13.8 billion light years, and if so, how do we estimate the age or distance of those measurements? What's giving me pause is my assumption that the oldest light measured (furthest away) is 13.8 billion light years old, but...

Is there any version of string theory or cosmological inflation that allows the most fundamental laws and constants change between universes? String Theory and Cosmological Inflation are two theories or models that allow multiple universes to exist. Laws and constants of physics could change...

I am interested in knowing how to calculate the gravitational wave (GW) spectrum with inflation as a source, I have some background in inflation but I am not so familiar about calculating the GW spectrum. I am reading a paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.3249) about it, however, a big part of it...

https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12817 As a layman I've come to share this paper, mainly to garner the opinions of others to see what you all think, it was fairly insightful and seems interesting at least.

I just read an article by Natalie Wolchover (a smart and knowledgeable writer as far as I can tell) in Quanta about the new analysis supporting a closed universe. In the article she makes this comment, "The leading theory of the universe’s birth, known as cosmic inflation, yields pristine...

Do we know? Do we have any idea? There seems to be 2 schools of thought. 1. The initial conditions can be almost any value with universes inflating with different laws of physics. This is the multiverse and string theory 10^500 false vacua view. 2. The initial conditions are more restrained...

It says that since there is homogeneity in the Universe's temperature, all these points must have come from one source (or a source close to each other?) at a certain time. Then it also calculates the number of these sources and it's ~105. But isn't that very dense mass right before the Big...

I have often heard it said that the picture of a multiverse inspired from eternal inflation is not falsifiable. However this paper from 2012 claims that it is: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.5037.pdf specifically it says, as I understand it, that if one were to measure sufficient positive spatial...

In the eternal inflation scenario described by Guth here: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0702178 it is usually thought it is impossible to ever travel to one of the other bubble universes as they are separated by inflating space expanding faster than any spacecraft could every travel. However...

Hi, Let be a scalar field φ that permeates all space. The quantum of the field has a mass m. The field is at the minimum of its potential. When this minimum is for φ≠0 (a broken symmetry), the quantum may be observed by exciting the field, as with the Higgs boson. But if the symmetry is not...

Was all dark energy "born" at the moment of the Big Bang? Or does it "spring" into existence continually?

Problem gives these for a chaotic model; V(Φ)=Voexp(-√(2/p)* Φ/Μp) Φ(t)=√(2p)*Mpln[√(Vo/24πp2) *t/Mp] There's a standard method to follow and find the a(t) by using Friedmann's and inflaton equations. I think my mistake is most likely on the math part, because in the physics aspect we always...

Hi Folks, I've read that by the time mankind is ready for intergalactic travel, our nearest galactic neighbour will be too far to even travel to. But I've also read that Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way. Which is correct? And if the universe is expanding and everything is...

I am reading an article, Inflation and CMBR by Charles H. Lineweaver. He explains the inflation period as the shrinking of the event horizon in the comoving coordinate system. Which it makes sense since the inflation was a period of ##\Lambda##. And In this period of time event horizon shrinks...

Can anyone please explain how inflation removes the horizon. problem of standard cosmology . As much I know inflation is a period of accelerated expansion which can be approximated by ~exp(βt) which can be achieved if the energy density remains constt. throughout (e.g ≠ε(t)),which is the case...

Are there any non risky ways of beating the inflation rate( 2% annually I think)? I'm all for saving, but the fact that cash loses value frightens me. Investing is also risky too. Are there any non volatile, surefire way to beat inflation?

By how many times is the size of the observable universe larger than expected because of inflation?

Inflation seems to explain why distantly separated parts of the universe are at the same temperature etc. But I've never seen any reason why the different parts should have been at different temperatures in the first place. Is there a simple answer to that?