Generality of Topological Inflation

Abstract

Many authors claimed that a large initial inhomogeneity prevents the onset of inflation and therefore inflation takes place only if the scalar field is homogeneous or appropriately chosen over the horizon scale. We show that those arguments do not apply to topological inflation. The core of a defect starts inflation even if it has much smaller size than the horizon and much larger gradient energy than the potential, as long as the vacuum expectation value is large enough ($\gtrsim0.3\mpl$) and the core is not contracting initially. This is due to stability of false vacuum.