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arXiv · hep-th/0603105

Probabilities in the landscape: The decay of nearly flat space

Raphael Bousso·Ben Freivogel·Matthew Lippert
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Abstract

We discuss aspects of the problem of assigning probabilities in eternal inflation. In particular, we investigate a recent suggestion that the lowest energy de Sitter vacuum in the landscape is effectively stable. The associated proposal for probabilities would relegate lower energy vacua to unlikely excursions of a high entropy system. We note that it would also imply that the string theory landscape is experimentally ruled out. However, we extensively analyze the structure of the space of Coleman-De Luccia solutions, and we present analytic arguments, as well as numerical evidence, that the decay rate varies continuously as the false vacuum energy goes through zero. Hence, low-energy de Sitter vacua do not become anomalously stable; negative and zero cosmological constant regions cannot be neglected.

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Raphael Bousso, Ben Freivogel, Matthew Lippert. 2006-03-15. Probabilities in the landscape: The decay of nearly flat space. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.74.046008

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