There is theoretical evidence that the number of degrees of freedom in quantum fields decreases as one studies them at extremely short distances. This emerges from the study of entropy of black holes, as well as from holographic theories in AdS geometries. Presumably a theory of quantum gravity will provide an explicit description of how the number of degrees of freedom thin out as one studies high energy scales.
We do not have a comprehensive theory of how such a thinning of degrees of freedom would occur. It is likely that there might be residual (and measurable) effects at larger length scales, though this might be significant only near the Planck scale. There are very few instances in Nature where one might be able to see effects of this thinning. One promising venue is in the phenomenon of inflation, produced in the simplest models through a scalar inflaton field in a potential with a flat ("slow-roll") part as well as a potential well. We compute the effect of such a thinning of degrees of freedom upon the running of the spectral index of quantum fluctuations of the inflaton and deduce that this will lead to a positive power of wave-vector (opposite to the usual $\sim -ε$, i.e., negative power correction). Some comments are then made about the impact on observations (or non-observations) of such fluctuations \cite{Martin}.
A model of inflation produced by a viscous fluid is investigated and its compatibility with the holographic principle at the very early universe (as recently formulated for the holographic universe with a holographic cut-off radius) is demonstrated. Specifically, ensuing from the model, the corresponding scale factor and infrared cut-off are analytically calculated, which are taken to be the particle and future event horizon for inflation, respectively. Using them, the energy conservation law, in the holographic point of view, is obtained. In this way, total equivalence of viscous fluid inflat…
After a brief introduction to the AdS/CFT holography a tachyon inflation will be discussed in the framework of holographic cosmology. The model is based on a holographic braneworld scenario with an effective tachyon field on a D3-brane located at the holographic bound of an asymptotic ADS$_5$ bulk.
We apply the holographic principle during the inflationary stage of our universe. Where necessary, we illustrate the analysis in the case of new and extended inflation which, together, typify generic models of inflation. We find that in the models of extended inflation type, and perhaps of new inflation type also, the holographic principle leads to a lower bound on the density fluctuations.
We investigate observational constraints on inflationary parameters in the context of an holographic cosmology with an induced gravity correction. We consider two situations where a universe is firstly filled with a scalar field and secondly with a tachyon field. Both cases are investigated in a slow-roll regime. We adopt a quadratic potential and an exponential potential for the scalar and the tachyon inflation respectively. In this regard, the standard background and perturbative parameters characterizing the inflationary era are modified by correction terms. We show a good agreement between…
In this letter we study a model of inflation in which the inflationary regimen comes from a type of holographic energy density. In particular, we consider the Granda-Oliveros proposal for the holographic energy density, which contains two free dimensionless parameters, $α$ and $β$. This holographic energy density is associated to the so-called Granda-Oliveros infrared cutoff (G-O cutoff). Additionally, since in the inflationary regimen the energy scales are very high, it is necessary to modify the G-O cutoff taking into account a correction due to the ultraviolet cutoff. In this way, we obtain…
Recently, Verlinde conjectured that gravity may be an entropic force, arising from thermodynamics on the holographic screen. We investigate the implications of the entropic force formalism for inflationary cosmology. We find the background dynamics of inflation can be dually described in the holographic language. At the perturbation level, two kinds of novel scale invariant scalar fluctuations arise from thermal fluctuations on the holographic screen. These fluctuations can be responsible for CMB anisotropy and structure formation.
The theory of holographic space-time (HST) generalizes both string theory and quantum field theory. It provides a geometric rationale for supersymmetry (SUSY) and a formalism in which super-Poincare invariance follows from Poincare invariance. HST unifies particles and black holes, realizing both as excitations of non-commutative geometrical variables on a holographic screen. Compact extra dimensions are interpreted as finite dimensional unitary representations of super- algebras, and have no moduli. Full field theoretic Fock spaces, and continuous moduli are both emergent phenomena of super-P…
Holographic inflation posits that the inflationary deSitter era of our universe is approximately described by a dual three-dimensional Euclidean CFT living on the spatial slice at the end of inflation. We point out that the BICEP2 results determine the central charge of this putative CFT to be given by $C_T=1.2 \times 10^9$.
We investigate the corrections of the holographic dark energy to inflation paradigm. We study the evolution of the holographic dark energy in the inflationary universe in detail, and carry out a model-independent analysis on the holographic dark energy correction to the primordial scalar power spectrum. It turns out that the corrections generically make the spectrum redder. To be consistent with the experimental data, there must be a upper bound on the reheating temperature. We also discuss the corrections due to different choices of the infrared cutoff.
We investigate the relationship between the holographic temperature bound and the slow-roll inflation. For this purpose we introduce the holographic temperature bound for a radiation matter :$T \ge T_{\rm H}$. Here $T_{\rm H}$ is the Hubble temperature which arises from the cosmological holographic description of for a radiation-dominated universe. For the quasi-de Sitter phase of slow-roll inflation, we find that the holographic temperature bound of $T_{\rm GH} \ge T_{\rm H}$ is guaranteed with the Gibbons-Hawking temperature $T_{\rm GH}$. When $T_{\rm GH}= T_{\rm H}$, inflation ends.
We present a simple derivation of an upper bound on the average size of the true vacuum bubbles at the end of inflation, in models of extended inflation type. The derivation uses the inequality that the total energy inside a given volume must be less than its linear dimensions. The above bound is the same as that obtained earlier, by applying the holographic principle according to Fischler-Susskind prescription. Such a bound leads to a lower bound on the denisty fluctuations.
A model of tachyon inflation is proposed in the framework of holographic cosmology. The model is based on a holographic braneworld scenario with a D3-brane located at the holographic boundary of an asymptotic ADS$_5$ bulk. The tachyon field that drives inflation is represented by a DBI action on the brane. We solve the evolution equations analytically in the slow-roll regime and solve the exact equations numerically. We calculate the inflation parameters and compare the results with Planck 2018 data.
We introduce the relation between the holographic entropy bounds and the inflationary universe. First the holographic entropy bounds for radiation-dominated universe, radiation-dominated universe with a positive cosmological constant are introduced. For an exact de Sitter phase, we use the maximal entropy bound. We classify the inflation based on the quasi-de Sitter spacetime into three steps: slow-roll period of inflation, epoch of reheating, and radiation-dominated era. Then we study how to apply three entropy bounds to the three steps of the inflation. Finally we discuss our results.
Using the de Sitter/CFT correspondence we describe a scenario of holographic inflation which is driven by a three dimensional boundary field theory. We find that inflationary constraints severely restrict the $β$--function, the anomalous dimensions and the value of the $C$--function of the boundary theory. The scenario has model independent predictions such as $ε<< η$, $n_T<0.04$, $P_{tensor}/P_{scalar}<0.08$ and $H<10^{14} GeV$. We consider some simple boundary theories and find that they do not lead to inflation. Thus, building an acceptable holographic inflation model remains a challenge. W…
We consider issues related to tachyonic inflation with inverse-power-law potential. We find the solution of the evolution equations in the slow roll limit in FRW as well as in the brane cosmology. Using the holographic entropy bound, we estimate the quantum-gravitational discreteness of tachyonic inflation perturbations.
We use holographic techniques to compute inflationary non-Gaussianities for general single-field inflation, including models with a non-trivial sound speed. In this holographic approach, the inflationary dynamics is captured by a relevant deformation of the dual conformal field theory (CFT) in the UV, while the inflationary correlators are computed by conformal perturbation theory. In this paper, we discuss the effects of higher derivative operators, such as $(\partial_μϕ\partial^μϕ)^{m}$, which are known to induce a non-trivial sound speed and source potentially large non-Gaussianities. We co…
It is well known that, in single clock inflation, the curvature perturbation $ζ$ is constant in time on superhorizon scales. In the standard bulk description this follows quite simply from the local conservation of the energy momentum tensor in the bulk. On the other hand, in a holographic description, the constancy of the curvature perturbation must be related to the properties of the RG flow in the boundary theory. Here, we show that, in single clock holographic inflation, the time independence of correlators of $ζ$ follows from the cut-off independence of correlators of the energy momentum …
The formation of frozen classical perturbations from vacuum quantum fluctuations during inflation is described as a unitary quantum process with apparent "decoherence" caused by the expanding spacetime. It is argued that the maximum observable information content per comoving volume in classical modes is subject to the covariant entropy bound at the time those modes decohere, leading to a new quantitative bound on the information contained in frozen field modes in phase space. This bound implies holographic correlations of large-scale cosmological perturbations that may be observable.
We discuss how holographic bounds can be applied to the quantum fluctuations of the inflaton. In general the holographic principle will lead to a bound on the UV cutoff scale of the effective theory of inflation, but it will depend on the coarse-graining prescription involved in calculating the entropy. We propose that the entanglement entropy is a natural measure of the entropy of the quantum perturbations, and show which kind of bound on the cutoff it leads to. Such bounds are related to whether the effects of new physics will show up in the CMB.
We apply the holographic principle at the early universe, obtaining an inflation realization of holographic origin. Such a consideration has equal footing with its well-studied late-time application, and moreover the decrease of the horizons at early times naturally increases holographic energy density at inflationary scales. Taking as Infrared cutoff the particle or future event horizons, and adding a simple correction due to the Ultraviolet cutoff, whose role is non-negligible at the high energy scales of inflation, we result in a holographic inflation scenario that is very efficient in inco…
We compare two holographic arguments that impose especially strong bounds on the amount of inflation. One comes from the de Sitter Equilibrium cosmology and the other from the work of Banks and Fischler. We find that simple versions of these two approaches yield the same bound on the number of e-foldings. A careful examination reveals that while these pictures are similar in spirit, they are not necessarily identical prescriptions. We apply the two pictures to specific cosmologies which expose potentially important differences and which also demonstrate ways these seemingly simple proposals ca…
In a holographic description of inflation, cosmological time evolution in the bulk is expected to correspond to the renomalization group (RG) flow in a dual boundary theory. Here, we analyze this expectation by computing the correlation functions of the curvature perturbation $ζ$ holographically. For this purpose, we use a deformed conformal field theory at the boundary, with a single deformation operator. In standard single field models of inflation, $ζ$ is known to be conserved at large scales under very general conditions. However, we find that this is not generically the case in the dual d…
In a class of recently proposed models, the early universe is strongly coupled and described holographically by a three-dimensional, weakly coupled, super-renormalizable quantum field theory. This scenario leads to a power spectrum of scalar perturbations that differs from the usual empirical LCDM form and the predictions of generic models of single field, slow roll inflation. This spectrum is characterized by two parameters: an amplitude, and a parameter g related to the coupling constant of the dual theory. We estimate these parameters, using WMAP and other astrophysical data. We compute Bay…
Holographic considerations may provide a glimpse of quantum gravity beyond what is currently accessible by other means. Here we apply holography to inflationary cosmology. We argue that the appropriate holographic bound on the total entropy in the inflationary perturbations is given by the {\it difference} of the area of the apparent horizon in the slow-roll approximation and its exact value near the end of inflation. This implies that the effective field theory of the inflaton weakly coupled to gravity requires modifications below the Planck scale. For a conventional model of inflation this s…
We consider warm inflation in the context of holographic cosmology. The weak and the strong dissipative regime are analysed in the slow-roll approximation and within what is known as intermediate inflation. For an appropriate choice of the equation of state, the intermediate inflation is not only an exact solution in general relativity, but also in the holographic setup considered in this paper. Within this approach several dissipative and physically relevant functions are considered. We constrain our model using the latest Planck data. We conclude that three of the models analysed are consist…
In holographic inflation, the $4D$ cosmological dynamics is postulated to be dual to the renormalization group flow of a $3D$ Euclidean conformal field theory with marginally relevant operators. The scalar potential of the $4D$ theory ---in which inflation is realized--- is highly constrained, with use of the Hamilton--Jacobi equations. In multi-field holographic realizations of inflation, fields additional to the inflaton cannot display underdamped oscillations (that is, their wavefunctions contain no oscillatory phases independent of the momenta). We show that this result is exact, independe…
The holographic state of matter exists in the quantum gravitational regime, with black holes as the example. In this essay, we provide a microscopic derivation to the holographic thermodynamics and further discuss its implications for quantum gravity. Especially, we establish the link between holographic entropy and dimensional reduction. It seems that the fundamental physics behind black holes and the very early universe is $1+1$ dimensional.
In a recently proposed scenario for primordial inflation, where the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson plays a role of the inflation field, an effective field theory (EFT) approach is the most convenient for working out the consequences of breaking of perturbative unitarity, caused by the strong coupling of the Higgs field to the Ricci scalar. The domain of validity of the EFT approach is given by the ultraviolet (UV) cutoff, which, roughly speaking, should always exceed the Hubble parameter in the course of inflation. On the other hand, applying the trusted principles of quantum gravity to a loc…
This paper is a major revision of our previous work on the HST model of inflation. We identify the local fluctuations of the metric with fluctuations of the mass and angular momentum of black holes, and show that the consistency conditions in HST for a single trajectory to see more and more of a homogeneous distribution of black holes, imply that the system outside the horizon is undergoing inflation: small systems of equal entropy, are not in causal contact. Homogeneity then requires that the initial trajectory underwent inflation that expanded the black hole radius into our current horizon. …
The Holographic Space-time (HST) model of inflation has a potential explanation for dark matter as tiny primordial black holes. Motivated by a recent paper of Barrau\cite{barrau} we propose a version of this model where some of the Inflationary Black Holes (IBHs), whose decay gives rise to the Hot Big Bang, carry the smallest value of a discrete symmetry charge. The fraction $f$ of IBHs carrying this charge is difficult to estimate from first principles, but we fix it by requiring that the crossover between radiation and matter domination occurs at the correct temperature $T_{eq} \sim 1 eV = 1…
The holographic dark energy model is obtained from a cosmological constant generated by generic quantum gravity effects giving a minimum length. By contrast, the usual bound for the energy density to be limited by the formation of a black hole simply gives the Friedmann equation. The scale of the current cosmological constant relative to the inflationary scale is an arbitrary parameter characterizing initial conditions, which however can be fixed by introducing a physical principle during inflation, as a function of the number of e-folds and the inflationary scale.
We consider an action for gravity that, in addition to the Einstein-Hilbert term, contains a function of the Ricci scalar and the Gauss-Bonnet invariant. The specific form of the function considered is motivated by holographic cosmology. At background level the field equations imply modified Friedmann equations of the same form as those in the holographic cosmology. We calculate the cosmological perturbations and derive the corresponding power spectra assuming a general $k$-inflation. We find that the resulting power spectra differ substantially from those obtained in both holographic and stan…
In the global description of eternal inflation, probabilities for vacua are notoriously ambiguous. The local point of view is preferred by holography and naturally picks out a simple probability measure. It is insensitive to large expansion factors or lifetimes, and so resolves a recently noted paradox. Any cosmological measure must be complemented with the probability for observers to emerge in a given vacuum. In lieu of anthropic criteria, I propose to estimate this by the entropy that can be produced in a local patch. This allows for prior-free predictions.
We investigate infrared logarithms in de Sitter space from holographic perspective. We employ a gravitational Fokker-Planck equation to investigate the time evolution of the de Sitter entropy $S=π/(G_N H^2)$, where $H$ is the Hubble parameter and $G_N$ is the Newton's constant. Under the Gaussian approximation, we obtain the dynamical $β$ function of $g=1/S$. It is asymptotically free toward the future. It also possesses the ultraviolet fixed point indicating that the Universe started the de Sitter expansion at the Planck scale. The pre-inflation era exists to prepare a special initial conditi…
We describe type $II_A$ cosmological brane inflation scenarios based on the holographic MQCD model of Aharony et al \cite{Aharony:2010mi}. The scenarios can be related via T-duality to the type $II_B$ KKLMMT model \cite{Kachru:2003sx}. They describe a probe brane configuration of $p$ D4 branes stretching between an $NS5$ and $NS5'$ branes in the holographic background of large $N$ D4 branes. The resulting cosmological models have a Wick-rotated D4-brane metric, with transverse dimensions compactified, and a spiralling brane with flux $p$. In one model, the background has a small nonextremality…
We discuss the phenomenology of recently proposed holographic models of inflation, in which the very early universe is non-geometric and is described by a dual three-dimensional quantum field theory (QFT). We analyze models determined by a specific class of dual QFTs and show that they have the following universal properties: (i) they have a nearly scale invariant spectrum of small amplitude primordial fluctuations, (ii) the scalar spectral index runs as alpha_s = -(n_s-1), (iii) the three-point function of primordial scalar perturbations is of exactly the factorizable equilateral form with f_…
In this paper we provide some circumstantial evidence for a holographic duality between bubble nucleation in an eternally inflating universe and a Euclidean conformal field theory. The holographic correspondence (which is different than Strominger's dS/CFT duality) relates the decay of (3+1)-dimensional de Sitter space to a two-dimensional CFT. It is not associated with pure de Sitter space, but rather with Coleman-De Luccia bubble nucleation. Alternatively, it can be thought of as a holographic description of the open, infinite, FRW cosmology that results from such a bubble. The conjectured h…
We show that eternal inflation is compatible with holography. In particular, we emphasize that if a region is asymptotically de Sitter in the future, holographic arguments by themselves place no bound on the number of past e-foldings. We also comment briefly on holographic restrictions on the production of baby universes.
This is a completely rewritten version of the talk I gave at the Philosophy of Cosmology conference in Tenerife, September 2014, which incorporates elements of my IFT Madrid Anthropics Conference talk. The original was too technical. The current version uses intuitive notions from black hole physics to explain the model of inflationary cosmology based on the Holographic Space Time formalism. The reason that the initial state of the universe had low entropy is that more generic states have no localized excitations, since in HST, localized excitations are defined by constraints on the fundamenta…
We introduce the cosmic holographic bounds with two UV and IR cutoff scales, to deal with both the inflationary universe in the past and dark energy in the future. To describe quantum fluctuations of inflation on sub-horizon scales, we use the Bekenstein-Hawking energy bound. However, it is not justified that the D-bound is satisfied with the coarse-grained entropy. The Hubble bounds are introduced for classical fluctuations of inflation on super-horizon scales. It turns out that the Hubble entropy bound is satisfied with the entanglement entropy and the Hubble temperature bound leads to a con…
We argue, using a phenomenological holographic approach, that walking, strongly coupled gauge theories generate a suitable potential for a small field inflation model. We show that the effective description is a model of a single inflaton. We determine the tunings necessary in the gauge sector to generate inflation and overcome the ηproblem.
Observational consequences of inflationary cosmology in the holographic dual of the Randall-Sundrum type II braneworld scenario, as motivated by the AdS/CFT correspondence, are investigated. High energy corrections to the standard four-dimensional Friedmann equation induce a corresponding modification to the form of the single-field inflationary consistency equation based on Einstein gravity. The degree of departure from the standard expression is determined by the ratio, r, of the primordial tensor and scalar perturbation amplitudes and the coefficient, c, of the conformal anomaly in the dual…
We continue the study of inflationary fluctuations in Holographic Space Time models of inflation. We argue that the holographic theory of inflation provides a physical context for what is often called dS/CFT. The holographic theory is a quantum theory which, in the limit of a large number of e-foldings, gives rise to a field theory on $S^3$, which is the representation space for a unitary representation of SO(1,4). This is not a conventional CFT, and we do not know the detailed non-perturbative axioms for correlation functions. However, the two- and three-point functions are completely determi…
The unifying approach to early-time and late-time universe based on phantom cosmology is proposed. We consider gravity-scalar system which contains usual potential and scalar coupling function in front of kinetic term. As a result, the possibility of phantom-non-phantom transition appears in such a way that universe could have effectively phantom equation of state at early time as well as at late time. In fact, the oscillating universe may have several phantom and non-phantom phases. As a second model we suggest generalized holographic dark energy where infrared cutoff is identified with combi…
In this paper, we analyze the holographic cosmology using a M2-M5 brane configuration. In this configuration, a M2-brane will be placed in between a M5-brane and an anti-M5-brane. The M2-brane will act as a channel for energy to flow from an anti-M5-brane to a M5-brane, and this will increase the degrees of freedom on the M5-brane causing inflation. The inflation will end when the M5-brane and anti-M5-brane get separated. However, at a later stage the distance between the M5-brane and the anti-M5-bran can reduce and this will cause the formation of tachyonic states. These tachyonic states will…
We propose a new four-parameter entropy function that generalizes the Tsallis, Rényi, Barrow, Sharma-Mittal, Kaniadakis and Loop Quantum Gravity entropies for suitable limits of the parameters. Consequently, we address the early and late universe cosmology corresponding to the proposed four-parameter entropy function. As a result, it turns out that the entropic cosmology from the generalized entropy function can unify the early inflation to the late dark energy era of the universe. In such a unified scenario, we find that -- (1) the inflation era is described by a quasi de-Sitter evolution of …
Holographic RG flows in some cases are known to be related to cosmological solutions. In this paper another example of such correspondence is provided. Holographic RG flows giving rise to asymptotically-free $β$-functions have been analyzed in connection with holographic models of QCD. They are shown upon Wick rotation to provide a large class of inflationary models with logarithmically-soft inflaton potentials. The scalar spectral index is universal and depends only on the number of e-foldings. The ratio of tensor to scalar power depends on the single extra real parameter that defines this cl…
Holographic codes grown with perfect tensors on regular hyperbolic tessellations using an inflation rule protect quantum information stored in the bulk from errors on the boundary provided the code rate is less than one. Hyperbolic geometry bounds the holographic code rate and guarantees quantum error correction for codes grown with any inflation rule on all regular hyperbolic tessellations in a class whose size grows exponentially with the rank of the perfect tensors for rank five and higher. For the tile completion inflation rule, holographic triangle codes have code rate more than one but a…
We propose the holographic principle as a dynamical cutoff for any quantum theory of gravity with a geometric description at low energies, incorporating ideas of effective field theory. We illustrate the proposal by revisiting the problem of defining a measure for homogeneous and isotropic spacetimes coupled to a scalar field and conclude by discussing the implications to the inflationary model.
I briefly review the theory of Holographic Space-time and its relation to the cosmological constant problem, and the breaking of supersymmetry (SUSY). When combined with some simple phenomenological requirements, these ideas lead to a fairly unique model for Tera-scale physics, which implies direct gauge mediation of SUSY breaking and a model for dark matter as a hidden sector baryon, with nonzero magnetic dipole moment.
It is argued that the entropy bound places an upper limit of about 1 TeV on the temperature of the last reheating era in the early Universe. Implications for inflation and non-standard paradigms for beyond the standard model of hot cosmology are studied.
