Inflation, holography, and the choice of vacuum in de Sitter space

Abstract

A family of de Sitter vacua introduced in hep-th/0203198 as plausible initial conditions for inflation, are discussed from the point of view of de Sitter holography. The vacua are argued to be physically acceptable and the inflationary picture provides a physical interpretation of a subfamily of de Sitter invariant vacua. Some speculations on the issue of vacuum choice and the connection between the CMBR and holography are also provided.