Probabilities in the landscape: The decay of nearly flat space
arXiv:hep-th/0603105 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.74.046008
Abstract
We discuss aspects of the problem of assigning probabilities in eternal inflation. In particular, we investigate a recent suggestion that the lowest energy de Sitter vacuum in the landscape is effectively stable. The associated proposal for probabilities would relegate lower energy vacua to unlikely excursions of a high entropy system. We note that it would also imply that the string theory landscape is experimentally ruled out. However, we extensively analyze the structure of the space of Coleman-De Luccia solutions, and we present analytic arguments, as well as numerical evidence, that the decay rate varies continuously as the false vacuum energy goes through zero. Hence, low-energy de Sitter vacua do not become anomalously stable; negative and zero cosmological constant regions cannot be neglected.
arXiv comment18 pages, 13 figures, Mathematica notebooks available from the authors. v2,v3: typos and omissions fixed
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