Abstract
The horizon and flatness problems had been recognized since the 1960s, but were rarely discussed—simply because no one had any idea as to what to do about them.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
We show in the Appendix that the doubling time in an inflating spacetime is \(t_{D} = \frac{0.7}{H}\).
- 2.
Despite the similarity between the tunneling of a ball and that of a scalar field, there is also an important difference. The ball tunnels between two different points in space, while the field tunnels between two different field values at the same location in space.
- 3.
A ball rolling on a similarly curved surface would also oscillate about the lowest point, would gradually slow down due to friction, and would come to rest, with all its mechanical energy turned into heat. Similarly, analysis shows that an oscillating field loses its energy by particle production, creating a fireball.
- 4.
Quantum fluctuations occur on smaller scales as well, but upward and downward kicks alternate in rapid succession, so their overall effect is nil. But once the fluctuation region is stretched to a size larger than \(d_{H}\), its different parts become causally disconnected, and coherent fluctuations in such a region are no longer possible. The surviving fluctuations are the ones produced in regions of size \(\sim d_{H}\). The region is then immediately stretched to a larger size, and the fluctuation “freezes”.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Perlov, D., Vilenkin, A. (2017). The Theory of Cosmic Inflation. In: Cosmology for the Curious. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57040-2_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57040-2_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57038-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57040-2
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)