Localization on the Landscape and Eternal Inflation

TL;DR

This paper examines whether eternal inflation can populate the string theory landscape, finding that quantum effects prevent bubble solutions from aligning with landscape wavefunctions, thus challenging their connection.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quantum cosmology wavefunctions are Anderson localized and incompatible with inflating bubble solutions in the landscape.

Findings

Bubble solutions do not satisfy the Klein-Gordon equation for the landscape.

Landscape wavefunctions are Anderson localized.

Quantum interference prevents eternal inflation from populating the landscape.

Abstract

We investigate the validity of the assertion that eternal inflation populates the landscape of string theory. We verify that bubble solutions do not satisfy the Klein Gordon equation for the landscape potential. Solutions to the landscape potential within the formalism of quantum cosmology are Anderson localized wavefunctions. Those are inconsistent with inflating bubble solutions. The physical reasons behind the failure of a relation between eternal inflation and the landscape are rooted in quantum phenomena such as interference between wavefunction concentrated around the various vacua in the landscape.