Previous
abstract 
Next
abstract
Session 112 - Early Universe & the CMB.
Oral session, Saturday, January 10
International Ballroom Center,
Conventional lore has held that a flat universe with Ømega _0=1 was a prediction of inflation. Yet observations suggest a subcritical universe rather than the flat universe preferred by many theorists. Single bubble open inflation gives a spatially hyperbolic universe with Ømega _0<1 and retains all the nice features of more conventional inflationary scenarios---solutions to the smoothness, horizon, and monopole problems. In single bubble open inflation Ømega _0 depends logarithmically on the parameters of the model, thus sidestepping the Dicke coincidence argument in favor of a flat universe. An interesting value of Ømega _0 between zero and one is obtained by tuning the parameters of the inflationary potential to a few percent. In single bubble open inflation there are two stages of inflation. First there is an initial epoch of old inflation during which whatever inhomogeneities may have existed before inflation are erased. Then a bubble nucleates in this de Sitter space background. The universe inside the bubble is a hyperbolic SO(3,1) invariant open universe. Inside the bubble there is a shortened epoch of slow-roll inflation which inflates the curvature scale to its present size. In this talk I review the basic idea behind single bubble open inflation and the calculation of the scalar and tensor perturbations generated in this model. I discuss implications for CMB anisotropy observations.
