Attractors, Universality and Inflation

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 an inverse cubic power law. 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.

arXiv comment32 pages, 8 figures. Typos and figures fixed

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Cited by in corpus (15)

• An analytic approach to non-slow-roll inflation
• Attractor Solutions in Scalar-Field Cosmology
• Power Suppression at Large Scales in String Inflation
• Probability of Slowroll Inflation in the Multiverse
• Inflection Points and the Power Spectrum
• Initial conditions and sampling for multifield inflation
• One antimatter --- two possible thermodynamics
• Clearing the Brush: The Last Stand of Solo Small Field Inflation
• Inflection Point Quintessence
• Dynamics of Mixed Dark Energy Domination in Teleparallel Gravity and Phase-Space Analysis
• Generically large nongaussianity in small multifield inflation
• Inflation as de Sitter instability
• Observational constraints on inflection point quintessence with a cubic potential
• Coupling q-deformed dark energy to dark matter
• Interacting dark matter and q-deformed dark energy non-minimally coupled to gravity