Abstract
Probabilities for observations in cosmology are conditioned both on the Universe’s quantum state and on local data specifying the observational situation. We show the quantum state defines a measure for prediction through such conditional probabilities that is well-behaved for spatially large or infinite universes when the probabilities that our data are replicated are taken into account. In histories where our data are rare volume weighting connects top-down probabilities conditioned on both the data and the quantum state to the bottom-up probabilities conditioned on the quantum state alone. We apply these principles to a calculation of the number of inflationary -folds in a homogeneous, isotropic minisuperspace model with a single scalar field moving in a quadratic potential. We find that volume weighting is justified and the top-down probabilities favor a large number of -folds, hereby predicting the curvature of our Universe at the present time to be approximately zero.
- Received 1 August 2009
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.80.063531
©2009 American Physical Society