Trans-Planckian censorship of multistage inflation and dark energy

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture constrains multistage inflation models, suggesting that the duration of current accelerated expansion could help distinguish inflation from alternative theories.

Contribution

It introduces bounds on multistage inflation based on the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture and proposes a landscape model with anti-de Sitter vacua for multistage inflation.

Findings

Bounds on subsequent inflation stages tied to the first stage's energy scale.

The lifetime of current accelerated expansion may serve as a probe for inflation.

A multistage inflation model within a landscape of anti-de Sitter vacua is presented.

Abstract

We explore the bound of the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture on an inflation model with multiple stages. We show that if the first inflationary stage is responsible for the primordial perturbations in the cosmic microwave background window, the $e$-folding number of each subsequent stage will be bounded by the energy scale of the first stage. This seems to imply that the lifetime of the current era of accelerated expansion (regarded as one of the multiple inflationary stages) might be a probe for distinguishing inflation from its alternatives. We also present a multistage inflation model in a landscape consisting of anti-de Sitter vacua separated by potential barriers.