Local Observation in Eternal Inflation

James Hartle, S. W. Hawking, and Thomas Hertog
Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 141302 – Published 8 April 2011
An article within the collection: The Work of Stephen Hawking in Physical Review

Abstract

We consider landscape models that admit several regions where the conditions for eternal inflation hold. It is shown that one can use the no-boundary wave function to calculate small departures from homogeneity within our past light cone despite the possibility of much larger fluctuations on super horizon scales. The dominant contribution comes from the history exiting eternal inflation at the lowest value of the potential. In a class of landscape models this predicts a tensor to scalar ratio of about 10%. In this way the no-boundary wave function defines a measure for the prediction of local cosmological observations.

  • Received 24 September 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.141302

© 2011 American Physical Society

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This article appears in the following collection:

The Work of Stephen Hawking in Physical Review

To mark the passing of Stephen Hawking, we gathered together his 55 papers in Physical Review D and Physical Review Letters. They probe the edges of space and time, from "Black holes and thermodynamics” to "Wave function of the Universe."

Authors & Affiliations

James Hartle1, S. W. Hawking2, and Thomas Hertog3

  • 1Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
  • 2DAMTP, CMS, Wilberforce Road, CB3 0WA Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • 3APC, UMR 7164 (CNRS, Université Paris 7), 10 rue A. Domon et L. Duquet, 75205 Paris, France and International Solvay Institutes, Boulevard du Triomphe, ULB - C.P. 231, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

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Vol. 106, Iss. 14 — 8 April 2011

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