Use the geodesic radial comoving coordinate, in which the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker metric has the form
On a slice of constant cosmic time, the radial proper-length element is . Therefore
If one starts from a curvature coordinate with radial element , then ; the curvature coordinate itself is not generally the used above.
For a comoving galaxy, , so . The definitions are
This recession law concerns proper distances on common cosmic-time slices. It is not a local special-relativistic relative velocity measurement; a large recession rate is not a signal exceeding the local speed of light.
For a comoving volume , total fluid energy is . Adiabatic energy conservation gives . Expanding,
hence
Here is mass-equivalent energy density. Radiation loses energy both by dilution and by pressure work; pressureless matter only dilutes in this description.
In the time-unit convention for the cosmological constant, it represents a uniform vacuum contribution with pressure equal to minus its energy density. There is a units convention in the printed field equations: their term is , so the symbol there has units of inverse time squared. If the geometrical constant is instead given in inverse length squared, this symbol equals . The curvature parameter labels constant-curvature spatial slices; with a conventional scale-factor normalization it is for positively curved, flat and negatively curved slices. It fixes local curvature sign, not every possible global spatial topology.
For a flat fluid-only model without a cosmological constant and with , the two field equations give
The two printed cases and their scale-factor laws are worked under the literal inline labels below.
Inflation is accelerated expansion, , equivalently a decreasing comoving Hubble radius on an expanding branch. An approximately constant positive vacuum-like energy can give nearly exponential expansion. Enough inflation can put regions now widely separated inside a common earlier causal patch, suppress and dilute unwanted relics such as monopoles. These are the horizon, flatness and relic-abundance motivations. Reheating is needed to populate the subsequent hot universe. Quantum fluctuations can seed primordial perturbations, but inflation alone is not a universal solution to the initial singularity or a proof that all initial conditions inflate.
Now adopt the printed natural units . For the Homogeneous massive-scalar equation in an expanding universe,
The continuity equation gives
Where , this implies the expanding-universe Klein-Gordon equation
A regular canonical-field solution extends it through isolated turning points by continuity. Purely dividing the conservation equation does not determine a trajectory on an interval where is identically zero; canonical field dynamics, or variation of its action, supplies the equation there. In particular a constant nonzero massive field is not an exact freely evolving solution.
With ,
Therefore
This inflation condition for a homogeneous massive scalar means a potential-dominated field has sufficiently negative pressure to accelerate expansion. In quadratic chaotic inflation, a large initial field with can enter slow roll, with and . The potential slow-roll parameter is , so a large field relative to the gravitational scale can support many e-folds. The field eventually rolls far enough that this regime ends and oscillation and reheating become relevant. Large potential energy with arbitrary initial kinetic energy does not by itself guarantee an inflationary interval.
Differentiating the flat Friedmann equation and then using the scalar equation,
For the expanding branch,
This Nonincreasing Hubble rate for a canonical inflaton decreases strictly where the field rolls and can be momentarily stationary at a turning point; the statement “always decreasing” means nonincreasing. This does not conflict with acceleration, because remains positive when .
At horizon exit, larger comoving wavelengths leave earlier, when is larger. For a canonical field in slow roll, with reduced Planck mass ,
The decreasing expansion rate gives a red tensor tilt at this order. The scalar curvature spectrum also contains the conversion from field fluctuations to curvature:
Here counts elapsed e-folds. Thus the Decreasing Hubble rate does not alone fix scalar tilt. Evolution of matters. For the quadratic slow-roll model, and . If e-folds remain until the end, leading estimates give and tensor-to-scalar ratio , with small end-of-inflation corrections.
The relevant contemporary comparison is a nearly scale-invariant but red scalar spectrum. The February2015 Planck analysis reported for its temperature, low-polarization and lensing combination, and an upper limit at95percent confidence. The scalar tilt is qualitatively consistent with a slowly evolving inflaton, but that result does not establish the quadratic potential; its relatively large tensor prediction was already disfavored against lower-tensor alternatives in that analysis.[ref]
Figure 1.
Original slow-roll illustration distinguishing a red tensor spectrum from the additional epsilon evolution controlling scalar tilt
. Details.