Inflation, phase transitions and the cosmological constant

Abstract

Cosmological phase transitions are thought to have taken place at the early Universe imprinting their properties on the observable Universe. There is strong evidence that, through the dynamics of a scalar field that lead a second order phase transition, inflation shaped the Universe accounting for the most conspicuous features of the observed Universe. It is argued that inflation has also striking implications for the vacuum energy. Considerations for subsequent second order phase transitions are also discussed.

9 pages. Version to match to one to be published in General Relativity and Gravitation

References in corpus (7)

• Dynamics of dark energy
• The Cosmological Constant and the String Landscape
• Vacuum Energy Sequestering: The Framework and Its Cosmological Consequences
• Chaplygin inspired Inflation
• A Curvature Principle for the interaction between universes
• Spontaneous symmetry breaking in the late Universe and glimpses of early Universe phase transitions à la baryogenesis
• Loop quantum gravity and cosmological constant

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Multi-field cold and warm inflation and the de Sitter swampland conjectures
• Proposed method of combining continuum mechanics with Einstein Field Equations