Eternal inflation

Eternal inflation is a hypothetical inflationary universe model, which is itself an outgrowth or extension of the Big Bang theory.

According to eternal inflation, the inflationary phase of the universe's expansion lasts forever throughout most of the universe. Because the regions expand exponentially rapidly, most of the volume of the universe at any given time is inflating. Eternal inflation, therefore, produces a hypothetically infinite multiverse, in which only an insignificant fractal volume ends inflation.

Paul Steinhardt, one of the original researchers of the inflationary model, introduced the first example of eternal inflation in 1983,[1] and Alexander Vilenkin showed that it is generic.[2][clarification needed]

Alan Guth's 2007 paper, "Eternal inflation and its implications",[3] states that under reasonable assumptions "Although inflation is generically eternal into the future, it is not eternal into the past." Guth detailed what was known about the subject at the time, and demonstrated that eternal inflation was still considered the likely outcome of inflation, more than 20 years after eternal inflation was first introduced by Steinhardt.

  1. ^ Gibbons, Gary W.; Hawking, Stephen W.; Siklos, S.T.C., eds. (1983). "Natural Inflation". The Very Early Universe. Cambridge University Press. pp. 251–66. ISBN 978-0-521-31677-4.
  2. ^ Vilenkin, Alexander (1983). "Birth of Inflationary Universes". Physical Review D. 27 (12): 2848–2855. Bibcode:1983PhRvD..27.2848V. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.27.2848.
  3. ^ Guth, Alan H. (2007). "Eternal inflation and its implications". J. Phys. A. 40 (25): 6811–6826. arXiv:hep-th/0702178. Bibcode:2007JPhA...40.6811G. doi:10.1088/1751-8113/40/25/S25. S2CID 18669045.