TY - JOUR
T1 - Loop quantum cosmology and slow roll inflation
AU - Ashtekar, Abhay
AU - Sloan, David
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank William Nelson, Parampreet Singh and Neil Turok for discussions. This work was supported in part by the NSF grant PHY0854743 and the Eberly and Frymoyer research funds of Penn State.
PY - 2010/11/1
Y1 - 2010/11/1
N2 - In loop quantum cosmology (LQC) the big bang is replaced by a quantum bounce which is followed by a robust phase of super-inflation. Rather than growing unboundedly in the past, the Hubble parameter vanishes at the bounce and attains a finite universal maximum at the end of super-inflation. These novel features lead to an unforeseen implication: in presence of suitable potentials all LQC dynamical trajectories are funneled to conditions which virtually guarantee slow roll inflation with more than 68 e-foldings, without any input from the pre-big bang regime. This is in striking contrast to certain results in general relativity, where it is argued that the a priori probability of obtaining a slow roll with 68 or more e-foldings is suppressed by a factor e-204.
AB - In loop quantum cosmology (LQC) the big bang is replaced by a quantum bounce which is followed by a robust phase of super-inflation. Rather than growing unboundedly in the past, the Hubble parameter vanishes at the bounce and attains a finite universal maximum at the end of super-inflation. These novel features lead to an unforeseen implication: in presence of suitable potentials all LQC dynamical trajectories are funneled to conditions which virtually guarantee slow roll inflation with more than 68 e-foldings, without any input from the pre-big bang regime. This is in striking contrast to certain results in general relativity, where it is argued that the a priori probability of obtaining a slow roll with 68 or more e-foldings is suppressed by a factor e-204.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.058
DO - 10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.058
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77957819218
SN - 0370-2693
VL - 694
SP - 108
EP - 112
JO - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
JF - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
IS - 2
ER -