Eternal Inflation Theory

In cosmology, finding a theory which wholly explains the origin of the Universe is a very difficult and complex task.

The theory of “Big Bang”, which is, as we know, is one of the most well-liked and most accepted theories, says that the universe is, because of an explosion. There was no problem with this theory until some new question arose and the Big Bang Theory was enclosed with flaws.

Cosmologists started thinking about an alternative theory which explain the beginning of the Universe. Between all the chaos, a theory named ‘Inflation’ came into existence. This theory tells about a hypothetical event that occurred between 10^-36 and 10^-32 sec after the singularity.

This event was named as ‘Inflation Epoch’ which expanded the whole universe to the factor of 10²⁶, which is a greatly bigger number.

The Buble universe 

Up to here, you must have understood that the “Cosmic Inflation Theory” explains the Big Bang as an expansion, not as an explosion.

In 1979, one of our leading cosmologist, Alan Guth came with his “Eternal Inflation Theory” to explain the event of inflation.

According to this theory, the event of the Inflation was due to a ‘Quantum event’. This theory involves the concepts of ‘Quantum Field Theory’.

Alan Guth

The Quantum Field Theory says that every particle which makes up matter and force, is a disturbance in a fundamental entity called ‘Quantum field’. These fields are available everywhere in this Universe and they interact with each other. Whenever we provide energy to these fields, they start oscillating and its rate is depended on intensity of the energy.

Like anything in the Universe, this field also wants to attain their lower energy state to be a stable object. But sometimes these fields get stuck in a Meta stable state. This state is a period in which a field remains unstable for a long period of time. This Meta stable state helps the field to store energy for a long period of time; and the state is also known as “False Vacuum”.

Sometimes the energy in these False Vacuum becomes so dense that they cause gravity to become repulsive and due to this, the space expands and this helps the field to attain the stable state.

When our Universe was not born, there was only a field named as “Inflation”. The space around the point of this field got expanded due to its highly dense energy. Along with the space, the energy and inflation field also spread over a volume which was 10²⁶ times larger than singularity! But after 10^-32 sec the rate of expansion of the Universe somehow decreased and stopped accelerating at exponential rate.

This was a problem because the points which are in opposite direction are too distant to create any heat equilibrium. But according to the Eternal Inflation Theory, those contrasting points were in contact for some point of time, due to which they could maintain equilibrium.

The next Problem with the Big Bang Theory was the Flatness problem. The flatness of the space-time was a problem because the Big Bang was an explosion and due to this, the space should be in hyperbolic shape and not flat. According to the Eternal Inflation Theory, the space-time is totally spherical i.e. curved, but since we are able to observe only a small part of it, it appears as flat as a sheet of paper on the table to us.

Now, the last problem which came up with the evolution of the quantum and super String theory was that why there is no magnetic monopole in our Universe? In simple ways you can understand a monopole as a particle which has only one magnetic pole, either North Pole or South Pole. It does not have two poles like a normal magnet.

According to the Inflation theory, this monopole was present in the earliest Universe, but due to the inflation, the volume of the space became so large that the density decreased to a negligible level.

The Inflation field transformed into those fields which are present today. This highly exponential expansion only spread energy and helped in generation of ‘hot plasma soup’ which on cooling down helps in the formation of our Universe.

The energy packets in these “False Vacuum” are still decaying but the space is spreading at much higher rate than this decaying of region, this causes the inflation of the space to be eternal.

Our Universe, if observed from outside, appears like a bubble and the different points of this field are producing more bubbles which give way to new Universes, our “Multiverse”. The space between multiverse always expands which prevents them from colliding with each other.

Quantum Field

The Eternal Inflation theory is one of the most successful theories which could answer the question that was left unexplained by the Big Bang theory.

The theory of Inflation is still a hypothetical event only. This is because the instruments that we have today assists us to see only last 10^-33sec of inflation epoch, which is very less to be confident about this theory. But the scientist community is still trying to develop a new theory which explains the Universe and this theory is named as the “String Theory” (Grand Unified Theory) which we will be posted by us shortly.

The theory that we do have will be confirmed by the advanced instruments, but wait, in the scripts of our ancient India, a theory named “Vishnu’s Navel Theory”, predicts about the origin of our Universe. So, to now about that, do check out our next blog on this theory.

In cosmology, finding a theory which wholly explains the origin of the Universe is a very difficult and complex task.

The theory of “Big Bang”, which is, as we know, is one of the most well-liked and most accepted theories, says that the universe is, because of an explosion. There was no problem with this theory until some new question arose and the Big Bang Theory was enclosed with flaws.

Cosmologists started thinking about an alternative theory which explain the beginning of the Universe. Between all the chaos, a theory named ‘Inflation’ came into existence. This theory tells about a hypothetical event that occurred between 10^-36 and 10^-32 sec after the singularity.

This event was named as ‘Inflation Epoch’ which expanded the whole universe to the factor of 10²⁶, which is a greatly bigger number.

Up to here, you must have understood that the “Cosmic Inflation Theory” explains the Big Bang as an expansion, not as an explosion.

In 1979, one of our leading cosmologist, Alan Guth came with his “Eternal Inflation Theory” to explain the event of inflation.

According to this theory, the event of the Inflation was due to a ‘Quantum event’. This theory involves the concepts of ‘Quantum Field Theory’.

The Quantum Field Theory says that every particle which makes up matter and force, is a disturbance in a fundamental entity called ‘Quantum field’. These fields are available everywhere in this Universe and they interact with each other. Whenever we provide energy to these fields, they start oscillating and its rate is depended on intensity of the energy.

Like anything in the Universe, this field also wants to attain their lower energy state to be a stable object. But sometimes these fields get stuck in a Meta stable state. This state is a period in which a field remains unstable for a long period of time. This Meta stable state helps the field to store energy for a long period of time; and the state is also known as “False Vacuum”.

Sometimes the energy in these False Vacuum becomes so dense that they cause gravity to become repulsive and due to this, the space expands and this helps the field to attain the stable state.

When our Universe was not born, there was only a field named as “Inflation”. The space around the point of this field got expanded due to its highly dense energy. Along with the space, the energy and inflation field also spread over a volume which was 10²⁶ times larger than singularity! But after 10^-32 sec the rate of expansion of the Universe somehow decreased and stopped accelerating at exponential rate.

This was a problem because the points which are in opposite direction are too distant to create any heat equilibrium. But according to the Eternal Inflation Theory, those contrasting points were in contact for some point of time, due to which they could maintain equilibrium.

The next Problem with the Big Bang Theory was the Flatness problem. The flatness of the space-time was a problem because the Big Bang was an explosion and due to this, the space should be in hyperbolic shape and not flat. According to the Eternal Inflation Theory, the space-time is totally spherical i.e. curved, but since we are able to observe only a small part of it, it appears as flat as a sheet of paper on the table to us.

Now, the last problem which came up with the evolution of the quantum and super String theory was that why there is no magnetic monopole in our Universe? In simple ways you can understand a monopole as a particle which has only one magnetic pole, either North Pole or South Pole. It does not have two poles like a normal magnet.

According to the Inflation theory, this monopole was present in the earliest Universe, but due to the inflation, the volume of the space became so large that the density decreased to a negligible level.

The Inflation field transformed into those fields which are present today. This highly exponential expansion only spread energy and helped in generation of ‘hot plasma soup’ which on cooling down helps in the formation of our Universe.

The energy packets in these “False Vacuum” are still decaying but the space is spreading at much higher rate than this decaying of region, this causes the inflation of the space to be eternal.

Our Universe, if observed from outside, appears like a bubble and the different points of this field are producing more bubbles which give way to new Universes, our “Multiverse”. The space between multiverse always expands which prevents them from colliding with each other.

The Eternal Inflation theory is one of the most successful theories which could answer the question that was left unexplained by the Big Bang theory.

The theory of Inflation is still a hypothetical event only. This is because the instruments that we have today assists us to see only last 10^-33sec of inflation epoch, which is very less to be confident about this theory. But the scientist community is still trying to develop a new theory which explains the Universe and this theory is named as the “String Theory” (Grand Unified Theory) which we will be posted by us shortly.

The theory that we do have will be confirmed by the advanced instruments, but wait, in the scripts of our ancient India, a theory named “Vishnu’s Navel Theory”, predicts about the origin of our Universe. So, to know about that, do check out our next blog on this theory.