Abstract
Inflation involves a period of rapid growth of the Universe. This is most easily illustrated by considering a homogeneous, isotropic Universe with a flat FriedmannRobertson―Walker (FRW) metric described by a scale factor a(t). Here, “rapid growth” means a positive value of a/a = ―(4πGN/3)(ρ+3p) where ρ is the energy density and p the pressure. It is useful to identify the energy density driving inflation with some sort of scalar “potential” energy density V > 0 that is positive, and results in an effective equation of state \(\rho \simeq - p \simeq V\), which satisfies a > 0. If one identifies the potential energy as arising from the potential of some scalar field o, then o is known as the inflaton field.
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