New Old Inflation

Technical Report · Fri Oct 03 00:00:00 EDT 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/826450· OSTI ID:826450

Dvali, Gia ^[1]

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1. SLAC

We propose a new class of inflationary solutions to the standard cosmological problems (horizon, flatness, monopole,...), based on a modification of old inflation. These models do not require a potential which satisfies the normal inflationary slow-roll conditions. Our universe arises from a single tunneling event as the inflaton leaves the false vacuum. Subsequent dynamics (arising from either the oscillations of the inflaton field or thermal effects) keep a second field trapped in a false minimum, resulting in an evanescent period of inflation (with roughly 50 e-foldings) inside the bubble. This easily allows the bubble to grow sufficiently large to contain our present horizon volume. Reheating is accomplished when the inflaton driving the last stage of inflation rolls down to the true vacuum, and adiabatic density perturbations arise from moduli-dependent Yukawa couplings of the inflaton to matter fields. Our scenario has several robust predictions, including virtual absence of gravity waves, a possible absence of tilt in scalar perturbations, and a higher degree of non-Gaussianity than other models. It also naturally incorporates a solution to the cosmological moduli problem.

• Research Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00515
• OSTI ID: 826450
• Report Number(s): SLAC-PUB-10143
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
GRAVITY WAVES
INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
OSCILLATIONS