2001/11/30 by Anthony Aguirre, Steven Gratton · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.65.083507
published as Phys.Rev. D65 (2002) 083507 · Minor modifications to match version in Phys. Rev. D. 7 pages, 2 color figures
arxiv created 2002/02/22 · openalex publication_date 2002/03/29 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Since the advent of inflation, several theorems have been proven suggesting that although inflation can (and generically does) continue eternally into the future, it cannot be extended eternally into the past to create a ``steady-state'' model with no initial time. Here we provide a construction that circumvents these theorems and allows a self-consistent, geodesically complete, and physically sensible steady-state eternally inflating universe, based on the flat slicing of de Sitter space. This construction could be used as the background spacetime for creation events that form big-bang-like regions, and hence could form the basis for a cosmology that is compatible with observations and yet which avoids an initial singularity or beginning of time.