TY - JOUR
T1 - Observational consequences of a landscape
AU - Freivogel, Ben
AU - Kleban, Matthew
AU - Martínez, María Rodríguez
AU - Susskind, Leonard
PY - 2006/3/1
Y1 - 2006/3/1
N2 - In this paper we consider the implications of the "landscape" paradigm [1], [2] for the large scale properties of the universe. The most direct implication of a rich landscape is that our local universe was born in a tunnelling event from a neighboring vacuum. This would imply that we live in an open FRW universe with negative spatial curvature. We argue that the "overshoot" problem, which in other settings would make it difficult to achieve slow roll inflation, actually favors such a cosmology. We consider anthropic bounds on the value of the curvature and on the parameters of inflation. When supplemented by statistical arguments these bounds suggest that the number of inflationary efolds is not very much larger than the observed lower bound. Although not statistically favored, the likelihood that the number of efolds is close to the bound set by observations is not negligible. The possible signatures of such a low number of efolds are briefly described.
AB - In this paper we consider the implications of the "landscape" paradigm [1], [2] for the large scale properties of the universe. The most direct implication of a rich landscape is that our local universe was born in a tunnelling event from a neighboring vacuum. This would imply that we live in an open FRW universe with negative spatial curvature. We argue that the "overshoot" problem, which in other settings would make it difficult to achieve slow roll inflation, actually favors such a cosmology. We consider anthropic bounds on the value of the curvature and on the parameters of inflation. When supplemented by statistical arguments these bounds suggest that the number of inflationary efolds is not very much larger than the observed lower bound. Although not statistically favored, the likelihood that the number of efolds is close to the bound set by observations is not negligible. The possible signatures of such a low number of efolds are briefly described.
KW - dS vacua in string theory
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U2 - 10.1088/1126-6708/2006/03/039
DO - 10.1088/1126-6708/2006/03/039
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:33645656842
SN - 1029-8479
SP - 1005
EP - 1023
JO - Journal of High Energy Physics
JF - Journal of High Energy Physics
IS - 3
ER -