Reconciling Inflation with Openness

Abstract

It is already understood that the increasing observational evidence for an open Universe may be reconciled with inflation if our horizon is contained inside one single huge bubble nucleated during the inflationary phase transition. In the scenario we present here, the Universe consists of infinitely many superhorizon bubbles, like our own, the distribution of which can be made to peak at $\Omega_0\approx 0.2$. Therefore, unlike the existing literature, we do not have to rely upon the anthropic principle nor upon special initial conditions.