paper

A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation?

arXiv:1707.07702 · doi:10.1007/JHEP04(2018)147

Abstract

The usual theory of inflation breaks down in eternal inflation. We derive a dual description of eternal inflation in terms of a deformed Euclidean CFT located at the threshold of eternal inflation. The partition function gives the amplitude of different geometries of the threshold surface in the no-boundary state. Its local and global behavior in dual toy models shows that the amplitude is low for surfaces which are not nearly conformal to the round three-sphere and essentially zero for surfaces with negative curvature. Based on this we conjecture that the exit from eternal inflation does not produce an infinite fractal-like multiverse, but is finite and reasonably smooth.

15 pages; v2: added explicit calculation of higher-spin toy-model; v3: minor changes to provide more context, references added, version accepted for publication in JHEP

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