1993/07/31 by Andrei Linde · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.49.748
published as Phys.Rev.D49:748-754,1994 · 13 p., SU-ITP-93-17, LaTeX (the first part is extended)
arxiv created 1993/09/27 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
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.