Speaker
Description
Inflation requires highly homogeneous initial conditions on large scales. We investigate whether an initial Einstein static phase can naturally establish such conditions. In a hot, quasi-static Universe, thermal equilibrium can suppress inhomogeneities, providing a potential pre-inflationary homogenisation mechanism.
We construct a dynamical model in which a scalar field replaces the cosmological constant, enabling a prolonged quasi-static epoch followed by a transition to expansion. We analyse the background evolution both analytically and numerically, identifying the parameters that control the duration of the static phase. We further compute the power spectrum of scalar perturbations arising from thermal initial conditions.
We estimate interaction rates from non-linear scalar–gravity couplings to assess thermalisation timescales. Our results constrain the viability of an Einstein static phase as an initial condition for inflation and identify the parameter regimes in which thermal initial conditions leave observable imprints on the power spectrum at large scales.