Universality of the Volume Bound in Slow-Roll Eternal Inflation

Journal Article · Wed Mar 28 04:00:00 EDT 2012 · Submitted to Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2012)035· OSTI ID:1037601

Dubovsky, Sergei; Senatore, Leonardo; Villadoro, Giovanni

It has recently been shown that in single field slow-roll inflation the total volume cannot grow by a factor larger than e{sup S{sub dS}/2} without becoming infinite. The bound is saturated exactly at the phase transition to eternal inflation where the probability to produce infinite volume becomes non zero. We show that the bound holds sharply also in any space-time dimensions, when arbitrary higher-dimensional operators are included and in the multi-field inflationary case. The relation with the entropy of de Sitter and the universality of the bound strengthen the case for a deeper holographic interpretation. As a spin-off we provide the formalism to compute the probability distribution of the volume after inflation for generic multi-field models, which might help to address questions about the population of vacua of the landscape during slow-roll inflation.

• Research Organization: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76SF00515
• OSTI ID: 1037601
• Report Number(s): SLAC-PUB-14663; arXiv:1111.1725
• Journal Information: Submitted to Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP), Journal Name: Submitted to Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP) Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 2012; ISSN 1029-8479
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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