Is our Universe likely to decay within 20 billion years?

Don N. Page
Phys. Rev. D 78, 063535 – Published 19 September 2008

Abstract

Observations that we are highly unlikely to be vacuum fluctuations suggest that our universe is decaying at a rate faster than the asymptotic volume growth rate, in order that there not be too many observers produced by vacuum fluctuations to make our observations highly atypical. An asymptotic linear e-folding time of roughly 16 Gyr (deduced from current measurements of cosmic acceleration) would then imply that our universe is more likely than not to decay within a time that is less than 19 Gyr in the future.

  • Received 8 August 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.78.063535

©2008 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Don N. Page*

  • Institute for Theoretical Physics Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Room 238 CEB, 11322-89 Avenue Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2G7

  • *don@phys.ualberta.ca

See Also

Return of the Boltzmann brains

Don N. Page
Phys. Rev. D 78, 063536 (2008)

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Vol. 78, Iss. 6 — 15 September 2008

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