Entropic inflation

Abstract

One of the major pillars of modern cosmology theory is a period of accelerating expansion in the early universe. This accelerating expansion, or inflation, must be sustained for at least 30 e-foldings. One mechanism used to drive the acceleration is the addition of a new energy field, called the inflaton; often this is a scalar field. We propose an alternative mechanism which, like our approach to explain the late-time accelerating universe, uses the entropy and temperature intrinsic to information holographically stored on a surface enclosing the observed space. The acceleration is due in both cases to an emergent entropic force, naturally arising from the information storage on the horizon. © 2012 World Scientific Publishing Company.