Topological phases of eternal inflation

Journal Article · Tue Jun 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.81.123515· OSTI ID:21408049

Sekino, Yasuhiro ^[1]; Shenker, Stephen; Susskind, Leonard ^[1]

---

1. Department of Physics, Stanford University Stanford, California 94305-4060 (United States)

''Eternal inflation'' is a term that describes a number of different phenomena that have been classified by Winitzki. According to Winitzki's classification, these phases can be characterized by the topology of the percolating structures in the inflating, 'white', region. In this paper we discuss these phases, the transitions between them, and the way they are seen by a 'Census Taker', a hypothetical observer inside the noninflating, 'black', region. We discuss three phases that we call 'black island', 'tubular', and 'white island'. The black island phase is familiar, composed of rare Coleman De Luccia bubble nucleation events. The Census Taker sees an essentially spherical boundary, described by the conformal field theory of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker/conformal field theory (FRW/CFT) correspondence. In the tubular phase the Census Taker sees a complicated infinite genus structure composed of arbitrarily long tubes. The white island phase is even more mysterious from the black side. Surprisingly, when viewed from the noninflating region this phase resembles a closed, positively curved universe that eventually collapses to a singularity. Nevertheless, pockets of eternal inflation continue forever. In addition, there is an 'aborted' phase in which no eternal inflation takes place. Rigorous results of Chayes, Chayes, Grannan, and Swindle establish the existence of all of these phases, separated by first order transitions, in Mandelbrot percolation, a simple model of eternal inflation.

• OSTI ID: 21408049
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 81, Issue 12; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.81.123515; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
CLASSIFICATION
CONFORMAL INVARIANCE
INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE
NUCLEATION
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
SINGULARITY
SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION
TOPOLOGY
UNIVERSE
CONFIGURATION
COSMOLOGICAL MODELS
FIELD THEORIES
INVARIANCE PRINCIPLES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICS