arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Andrei Linde.
We show that, contrary to the standard belief, primordial monopoles expand exponentially during inflation in the new inflationary universe scenario. Moreover, inflation of monopoles continues without an end even when inflation ends in the surrounding space. Therefore primordial monopoles (as well as other topological defects produced during inflation) can serve as seeds for the process of eternal self-reproduction of inflationary universe.
In this talk we discuss three different issues. First of all, there exist several proposals how to solve cosmological problems by adiabatic expansion of the Universe, without any use of inflation. We explain why these models do not solve the flatness/entropy problem. On the other hand there exist some claims that inflation also does not solve the flatness problem. We show that these claims are correct to a certain extent for old and new inflation, but are incorrect for simplest versions of chaotic inflation. The second issue to be considered is the classification of inflationary models. At present many inflationary models are compared to each other in order to understand which of them better describes observational data. Unfortunately, this often leads to terminological misunderstandings and even to misleading conclusions. We discuss three coexisting types of classification of inflationary models and explain their relation to each other. We also briefly describe the hybrid inflation model, which combines several interesting features of different inflationary models. Finally we show that it is possible to describe inflationary universe by a stationary (i.e. time-independent) probability distribution to find a domain of a given size containing matter with given properties. This represents a strong deviation of inflationary cosmology from the standard Big Bang paradigm.
Usually inflation ends either by a slow rolling of the inflaton field, which gradually becomes faster and faster, or by a first-order phase transition. We describe a model where inflation ends in a different way, due to a very rapid rolling (`waterfall') of a scalar field $σ$ triggered by another scalar field $ϕ$. This model looks as a hybrid of chaotic inflation and the usual theory with spontaneous symmetry breaking. Another hybrid model to be discussed here uses some building blocks from extended inflation (Brans-Dicke theory), from new inflation (phase transition due to a non-minimal coupling of the inflaton field to gravity) and from chaotic inflation (the possibility of inflation beginning at large as well as at small $σ$). In the simplest version of this scenario inflation ends up by slow rolling, thus avoiding the big-bubble problem of extended inflation.
If the Universe contains at least one inflationary domain with a sufficiently large and homogeneous scalar field, then this domain permanently produces new inflationary domains of all possible types. We show that under certain conditions this process of the self-reproduction of the Universe can be described by a stationary distribution of probability, which means that the fraction of the physical volume of the Universe in a state with given properties (with given values of fields, with a given density of matter, etc.) does not depend on time. This represents a strong deviation of inflationary cosmology from the standard Big Bang paradigm.
Recent progress in the theory of the electroweak phase transition is discussed. For the Higgs boson mass smaller than the masses of W and Z bosons, the phase transition is of the first order. However, its strength is approximately 2/3 times less than what follows from the one-loop approximation. This rules out baryogenesis in the minimal version of the electroweak theory with light Higgs bosons. The possibility of the strongly first order phase transition in the theory with superheavy Higgs bosons is considered. We show that if the Yang-Mills field at high temperature acquires a magnetic mass $\sim g^2 T$, then no linear terms appear in the effective potential in all orders of perturbation theory and the symmetry in gauge theories at high temperatures is actually restored. Even though the last statement was never questioned by most of the authors, it was extremely difficult to come to a reliable conclusion about it due to the infrared problem in thermodynamics of non-Abelian gauge fields. The phase transition occurs due to production and expansion of critical bubbles. A general analytic expression for the probability of the bubble formation is obtained, which may be used for study of tunneling in a wide class of theories.
In supersymmetric theories the mass of any state is bounded below by the values of some of its charges. The corresponding bounds in case of Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordström black holes are known to coincide with the requirement that naked singularities be absent. Here we investigate charged dilaton black holes in this context. We show that the extreme solutions saturate the supersymmetry bound of $N=4\ d=4$ supergravity, or dimensionally reduced superstring theory. Specifically, we have shown that extreme dilaton black holes, with electric and magnetic charges, admit super-covariantly constant spinors. The supersymmetric positivity bound for dilaton black holes, $M \geq \frac{1}{\sqrt 2}(|Q|+|P|)$, takes care of the absence of naked singularities of the dilaton black holes and is, in this sense, equivalent to the cosmic censorship condition. The temperature, entropy and singularity are discussed. The Euclidean action (entropy) of the extreme black hole is given by $2π|PQ|$. We argue that this result, as well as the one for Lorentzian signature, is not altered by higher order corrections in the supersymmetric theory. When a black hole reaches its extreme limit, it cannot continue to evaporate by emitting elementary particles, since this would violate the supersymmetric positivity bound. We speculate on the possibility that an extreme black hole may ``evaporate" by emitting smaller extreme black holes.
We discuss relationship between inflation and various models of production of density inhomogeneities due to strings, global monopoles, textures and other topological and non-topological defects. Neither of these models leads to a consistent cosmological theory without the help of inflation. However, each of these models can be incorporated into inflationary cosmology. We propose a model of inflationary phase transitions, which, in addition to topological and non-topological defects, may provide adiabatic density perturbations with a sharp maximum between the galaxy scale $l_g$ and the horizon scale $l_H$.
We develop a stochastic approach to the theory of tunneling with the baby universe formation. This method is applied also to the theory of creation of the universe in a laboratory.