Coherent Phase Argument for Inflation

Abstract

Cosmologists have developed a phenomenally successful picture of structure in the universe based on the idea that the universe expanded exponentially in its earliest moments. There are three pieces of evidence for this exponential expansion -- {\it inflation} -- from observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. First, the shape of the primordial spectrum is very similar to that predicted by generic inflation models. Second, the angular scale at which the first acoustic peak appears is consistent with the flat universe predicted by inflation. Here I describe the third piece of evidence, perhaps the most convincing of all: the phase coherence needed to account for the clear peak/trough structure observed by the WMAP satellite and its predecessors. I also discuss alternatives to inflation that have been proposed recently and explain how they produce coherent phases.