From Inflation to Dark Energy

TL;DR

The paper proposes that microscopic fluctuations surviving after inflation, related to a causet mechanism, could explain the origin of dark energy as a tiny residual effect of energy exchanges with a transplanckian reservoir.

Contribution

It introduces a reinterpretation of the causet mechanism focusing on energy fluctuations to explain dark energy without space emergence.

Findings

Microscopic fluctuations can account for dark energy.

Energy exchange occurs between cosmos and transplanckian reservoir.

Post-inflation energy fluctuations fluctuate in sign, producing a small cosmological constant.

Abstract

It is proposed that after the macroscopic fluctuation of energy density that is responsible for inflation dies away, a class of microscopic fluctuations, always present, survives to give the present day dark energy. This latter is simply a reinterpretation of the causet mechanism of Ahmed, Dodelson, Green and Sorkin, wherein the emergence of space is dropped but only energy considerations are maintained. At postinflation times, energy is exchanged between the "cisplanckian" cosmos and an unknown foam-like transplanckian reservoir. Whereas during inflation, the energy flows only from the latter to the former after inflation it fluctuates in sign thereby accounting for the tiny effective cosmological constant that seems to account for dark energy.