2006/12/21 by Jaume Garriga, Alan H. Guth, Alexander Vilenkin · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.76.123512
published as Phys.Rev.D76:123512,2007 · 27 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2006/12/21 · openalex publication_date 2007/12/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A ``bubble universe'' nucleating in an eternally inflating false vacuum will experience, in the course of its expansion, collisions with an infinite number of other bubbles. In an idealized model, we calculate the rate of collisions around an observer inside a given reference bubble. We show that the collision rate violates both the homogeneity and the isotropy of the bubble universe. Each bubble has a center which can be related to ``the beginning of inflation'' in the parent false vacuum, and any observer not at the center will see an anisotropic bubble collision rate that peaks in the outward direction. Surprisingly, this memory of the onset of inflation persists no matter how much time elapses before the nucleation of the reference bubble.