%0 Journal Article %1 Hartle2010 %A Hartle, James %A Hawking, S. W. %A Hertog, Thomas %D 2010 %K eternal inflation %T Eternal inflation without metaphysics %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2525 %X In the usual account of eternal inflation the universe is supposed to be a de Sitter background in which pocket universes nucleate at a steady rate. However this is metaphysics because there is no way this mosaic structure can be observed. We don't see the whole universe but only a nearly homogeneous region within our past light cone. We show that we 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. We find that the dominant contribution comes from the history that exits eternal inflation at the lowest value of the potential and predict, in a certain class of landscape models, 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.

@article{Hartle2010, abstract = { In the usual account of eternal inflation the universe is supposed to be a de Sitter background in which pocket universes nucleate at a steady rate. However this is metaphysics because there is no way this mosaic structure can be observed. We don't see the whole universe but only a nearly homogeneous region within our past light cone. We show that we 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. We find that the dominant contribution comes from the history that exits eternal inflation at the lowest value of the potential and predict, in a certain class of landscape models, 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. }, added-at = {2010-09-20T13:29:38.000+0200}, author = {Hartle, James and Hawking, S. W. and Hertog, Thomas}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2631f6ad7ab03920fd26fd8dbeaa420a7/jpschaar}, description = {Eternal inflation without metaphysics}, interhash = {228de17e0f867e3081e18d61add1334f}, intrahash = {631f6ad7ab03920fd26fd8dbeaa420a7}, keywords = {eternal inflation}, note = {cite arxiv:1009.2525 Comment: 4 pages}, timestamp = {2010-09-20T13:29:38.000+0200}, title = {Eternal inflation without metaphysics}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2525}, year = 2010 }