New Singularities in Unexpected Places

TL;DR

This paper identifies a new class of weaker spacetime singularities in simple cosmological models with scalar fields, challenging traditional views on singularity formation and implications for early universe inflation.

Contribution

It demonstrates that such singularities can occur in basic Friedmann cosmologies with scalar fields, without exotic matter, expanding understanding of spacetime singularities.

Findings

Existence of weaker singularities in scalar-field cosmologies

Singularities occur with only standard matter, no exotic components

Implications for the end of inflation and early universe models

Abstract

Spacetime singularities have been discovered which are physically much weaker than those predicted by the classical singularity theorems. Geodesics evolve through them and they only display infinities in the derivatives of their curvature invariants. So far, these singularities have appeared to require rather exotic and unphysical matter for their occurrence. Here we show that a large class of singularities of this form can be found in a simple Friedmann cosmology containing only a scalar-field with a power-law self-interaction potential. Their existence challenges several preconceived ideas about the nature of spacetime singularities and impacts upon the end of inflation in the early universe.