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Register a new userInhomogeneous Initial Data and Small-Field Inflation
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We consider the robustness of small-field inflation in the presence of scalar field inhomogeneities. Previous numerical work has shown that if the scalar potential is flat only over a narrow interval, such as in commonly considered inflection-point models, even small-amplitude inhomogeneities present at the would-be onset of inflation at $tau = tau_i$ can disrupt the accelerated expansion. In this paper, we parametrise and evolve the inhomogeneities from an earlier time $tau_{IC}$ at which the initial data were imprinted, and show that for a broad range of inflationary and pre-inflationary models, inflection-point inflation withstands initial inhomogeneities. We consider three classes of perturbative pre-inflationary solutions (corresponding to energetic domination by the scalar field kinetic term, a relativistic fluid, and isotropic negative curvature), and two classes of exact solutions to Einsteins equations with large inhomogeneities (corresponding to a stiff fluid with cylindrical symmetry, and anisotropic negative curvature). We derive a stability condition that depends on the Hubble scales $H(tau_ i)$ and $H(tau_{IC})$, and a few properties of the pre-inflationary cosmology. For initial data imprinted at the Planck scale, the absence of an inhomogeneous initial data problem for inflection-point inflation leads to a novel, lower limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio.
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Deriving the Einstein field equations (EFE) with matter fluid from the action principle is not straightforward, because mass conservation must be added as an additional constraint to make rest-frame mass density variable in reaction to metric variation. This can be avoided by introducing a constraint $delta(sqrt{-g}) = 0$ to metric variations $delta g^{mu u}$, and then the cosmological constant $Lambda$ emerges as an integration constant. This is a removal of one of the four constraints on initial conditions forced by EFE at the birth of the universe, and it may imply that EFE are unnecessarily restrictive about initial conditions. I then adopt a principle that the theory of gravity should be able to solve time evolution starting from arbitrary inhomogeneous initial conditions about spacetime and matter. The equations of gravitational fields satisfying this principle are obtained, by setting four auxiliary constraints on $delta g^{mu u}$ to extract six degrees of freedom for gravity. The cost of achieving this is a loss of general covariance, but these equations constitute a consistent theory if they hold in the special coordinate systems that can be uniquely specified with respect to the initial space-like hypersurface when the universe was born. This theory predicts that gravity is described by EFE with non-zero $Lambda$ in a homogeneous patch of the universe created by inflation, but $Lambda$ changes continuously across different patches. Then both the smallness and coincidence problems of the cosmological constant are solved by the anthropic argument. This is just a result of inhomogeneous initial conditions, not requiring any change of the fundamental physical laws in different patches.
Assuming that a scalar field controls the inflationary era, we examine the combined effects of string and $f(R)$ gravity corrections on the inflationary dynamics of canonical scalar field inflation, imposing the constraint that the speed of the primordial gravitational waves is equal to that of lights. Particularly, we study the inflationary dynamics of an Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity in the presence of $alpha R^2$ corrections, where $alpha$ is a free coupling parameter. As it was the case in the pure Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, the realization that the gravitational waves propagate through spacetime with the velocity of light, imposes the constraint that the Gauss-Bonnet coupling function $xi(phi)$ obeys the differential equation $ddotxi=Hdotxi$, where $H$ is the Hubble rate. Subsequently, a relation for the time derivative of the scalar field is extracted which implies that the scalar functions of the model, which are the Gauss-Bonnet coupling and the scalar potential, are interconnected and simply designating one of them specifies the other immediately. In this framework, it is useful to freely designate $xi(phi)$ and extract the corresponding scalar potential from the equations of motion but the opposite is still feasible. We demonstrate that the model can produce a viable inflationary phenomenology and for a wide range of the free parameters. Also, a mentionable issue is that when the coupling parameter $alpha$ of the $R^2$ correction term is $alpha<10^{-3}$ in Planck Units, the $R^2$ term is practically negligible and one obtains the same equations of motion as in the pure Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory, however the dynamics still change, since now the time derivative of $frac{partial f}{partial R}$ is nonzero.
We examine the class of initial conditions which give rise to inflation. Our analysis is carried out for several popular models including: Higgs inflation, Starobinsky inflation, chaotic inflation, axion monodromy inflation and non-canonical inflation. In each case we determine the set of initial conditions which give rise to sufficient inflation, with at least $60$ e-foldings. A phase-space analysis has been performed for each of these models and the effect of the initial inflationary energy scale on inflation has been studied numerically. This paper discusses two scenarios of Higgs inflation: (i) the Higgs is coupled to the scalar curvature, (ii) the Higgs Lagrangian contains a non-canonical kinetic term. In both cases we find Higgs inflation to be very robust since it can arise for a large class of initial conditions. One of the central results of our analysis is that, for plateau-like potentials associated with the Higgs and Starobinsky models, inflation can be realised even for initial scalar field values which lie close to the minimum of the potential. This dispels a misconception relating to plateau potentials prevailing in the literature. We also find that inflation in all models is more robust for larger values of the initial energy scale.
We study the quantization of the Einstein-Hilbert action for a small true vacuum bubble without matter or scalar field. The quantization of action induces an extra term of potential called quantum potential in Hamilton-Jacobi equation, which gives expanding solutions including the exponential expansion solutions of the scalar factor $a$ for the bubble. We show that exponential expansion of the bubble continues with a short period (about a Planck time $t_p$), no matter whether the bubble is closed, flat or open. The exponential expansion ends spontaneously when the bubble becomes large, i.e., the scalar factor $a$ of the bubble approaches a Planck length $l_p$. We show that it is quantum potential of the small true vacuum bubble that plays the role of the scalar field potential suggested in the slow-roll inflation model. With the picture of quantum tunneling, we calculate particle creation rate during inflation, which shows that particles created by inflation have the capability of reheating the universe.
We study the intermediate inflation in a non-canonical scalar field framework with a power-like Lagrangian. We show that in contrast with the standard canonical intermediate inflation, our non-canonical model is compatible with the observational results of Planck 2015. Also, we estimate the equilateral non-Gaussianity parameter which is in well agreement with the prediction of Planck 2015. Then, we obtain an approximation for the energy scale at the initial time of inflation and show that it can be of order of the Planck energy scale, i.e. ${M_P} sim {10^{18}},{rm{GeV}}$. We will see that after a short period of time, inflation enters in the slow-roll regime that its energy scale is of order ${M_P}/100 sim ;{10^{16}}{rm{GeV}}$ and the horizon exit takes place in this energy scale. We also examine an idea in our non-canonical model to overcome the central drawback of intermediate inflation which is the fact that inflation never ends. We solve this problem without disturbing significantly the nature of the intermediate inflation until the time of horizon exit.
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