On initial conditions for inflationary and bouncing cosmologies

Abstract

We consider the question of deriving initial conditions for scalar fields in driving both an early and late quintessence phase. The dark energy field presents an unresolved uniformity problem. Further difficulties with initial conditions for assisted, kinetic and phantom inflation are presented. We review the use of the canonical measure and find the negative conclusions of Gibbons and Hawking can be allayed by means of a reasonable quantum cosmological input. We remark upon some attempts at incorporating inflationary schemes into cyclic and bouncing models.