Vacuum Sampling in the Landscape during Inflation

Davoudiasl, Hooman; Sarangi, Sash; Shiu, Gary

Vacuum Sampling in the Landscape during Inflation

Authors

Davoudiasl, Hooman

Sarangi, Sash

Shiu, Gary

Description

We consider the phenomenological consequences of sampling multiple vacua during inflation motivated by an enormous landscape. A generic consequence of this sampling is the formation of domain walls, characterized by the scale $μ$ of the barriers that partition the accessed vacua. We find that the success of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) implies $μ\gsim 10$ TeV, as long as the sampled vacua have a non-degeneracy larger than $\cal{O}({\rm MeV}^{\rm 4})$. Otherwise, the walls will dominate and eventually form black holes that must reheat the universe sufficiently for BBN to take place; in this case, we obtain $μ\gsim 10^{-5}M_P$. These black holes are not allowed to survive and contribute to cosmic dark matter density.
4 pages. Abstract changed. New results and conclusion added