Attractors, universality, and inflation Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Studies of the initial conditions for inflation have conflicting predictions from exponential suppression to inevitability. At the level of phase space, this conflict arises from the competing intuitions of CPT invariance and thermodynamics. After reviewing this conflict, we enlarge the ensemble beyond phase space to include scalar potential data. We show how this leads to an important contribution from inflection point inflation, enhancing the likelihood of inflation to a power law, 1/Ne3. In the process, we emphasize the attractor dynamics of the gravity-scalar system and the existence of universality classes from inflection point inflation. Finally, we comment on the predictivity of inflation in light of these results. 2012 American Physical Society.

published proceedings

  • PHYSICAL REVIEW D

altmetric score

  • 1.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Downes, S., Dutta, B., & Sinha, K.

citation count

  • 14

complete list of authors

  • Downes, Sean||Dutta, Bhaskar||Sinha, Kuver

publication date

  • November 2012