Graceful Exit in Extended Inflation and Implications for Density Perturbations

Abstract

Two qualitatively different modes of ending superluminal expansion are possible in extended inflation. One mode, different from the one envoked in most extended models to date, easily avoids making big bubbles that distort the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). In this mode, the spectrum of density fluctuations is found to be scale-free, $P(k) \propto k^n$, where $n$ might lie anywhere between 0.5 and 1.0 (whereas, previously, it appeared that the range $1.0> n \gtsim 0.84$ was disallowed).