Joint cosmology seminar at Tufts:

Tuesday, March 8, 2022, 2:30 pm
Hybrid talk\\
In person at 574 Boston Ave, Room 310\\
{\large\sf Zoom link will be distributed to joint cosmology seminar mailing list. See\\
https://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mailman/listinfo/cosmology-seminar to join.\\}
Tufts University
Refreshments at 2:00 outside the building, at the corner of Harvard St. and Boston Ave.

Energy conditions allow eternal inflation

Ken Olum
Tufts

Abstract:

Eternal inflation proceeds by a series of fluctuations that increase the expansion rate of the universe in some Hubble volumes. This appears to violate the energy conditions, including the averaged null energy condition, which the inflaton field should obey. I will show at this conflict is resolved by consideration of the quantum states of the inflationary modes. In any single quantum state, the energy conditions hold, but decoherence repeatedly selects substates that are more rapidly expanding.