Volume 117B, number 3,4 PHYSICS LETTERS 11 November 1982

DYNAMICS OF PHASE TRANSITION IN THE NEW INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE SCENARIO

AND GENERATION OF PERTURBATIONS

A.A. STAROBINSKY
The Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, The Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117334, USSR

Received 13 July 1982

Dynamics of non-equilibrium phase transition in the early universe is investigated. The transition is triggered by vacuum
fluctuations of a Higgs scalar field which determine the duration of an intermediate inflationary stage and the amplitude of
adiabatic perturbations. This amplitude ranges from g2 to one and more depending on scale that presents a serious problem
for the inflationary scenario.

It becomes clear now that many different proper-
ties of the observed universe like its homogeneity, iso-
tropy, existence of perturbations sufficient for galaxy
formation etc. may be explained by assuming only one
hypothesis, namely that the early universe went through
the stage of exponential expansion - the de Sitter stage
(in ref. [1 ] this stage was called "inflationary").
Two reasonable ways to produce such a stage are
known. The first one is connected with the account
of one-loop quantum-gravitational corrections to the
Einstein equations. The corresponding cosmological
scenario was constructed in ref. [2]. The other possi-
bility is due to phase transitions which can take place
in the early universe. The inflationary scenario based
on the phase transition of a scalar Higgs field was first
considered by Guth [1 ]. However, it appears impossi-
ble to preserve isotropy and homogeneity after the
phase transition following this "old" inflationary sce-
nario. This takes place because, according to the "old"
scenario, the de Sitter phase decays into bubbles with
the most part of matter energy density being concen-
trated in the bubbles' walls. As a result, further ther-
realization of matter does not occur that was already
pointed out by Guth [1].
Recently a new inflationary scenario with a phase
transition was proposed by Linde [3] (see also refs.
[ 4 - 6 ] ) . The phase transition in the new scenario is of
Coleman-Weinberg type [7J, the matter energy den-
sity is approximately uniformly distributed inside
bubbles and the whole presently observed part of the
universe was, roughly speaking, inside one bubble.
The aim of the present paper is to develop a theory
of such a type of scenario and to calculate two most
important quantities: the duration of the de Sitter (in-
flationary) stage and the amplitude of adiabatic pertur-
bations generated during the phase transition. It will
be shown that the phase transition in this scenario pro-
ceeds mainly due to zero-temperature vacuum fluctua-
tions of a Higgs scalar field significantly distorted by
the curvature of the de Sitter space-time. So, gravita-
tional effects play an extremely important role here.
Following previous numerous investigations, we
shall describe a phase transition by a simple U(1) Higgs
model which can be easily generalized to more complex
cases including, e.g. the SU(5) model by changing nu-
merical values of coefficients. In doing so, it is usually
assumed that the variation of a multi-component scalar
Higgs field in the course of a phase transition can be
represented by some single "master" component [e.g.,
q~a = ~(1, 1, 1, - ~ , - ~ ) i n the case of SU(5) breaking
to SU(3) X SU(2) U(1)] - the point that deserves
special consideration in cases when fluctuations are
important. However, we shall follow this assumption.
The gauge coupling constant g2/4n is assumed to be
small and the scalar coupling constant X0 is supposed
to be ~ g 4 .
To obtain the effection equation for the scalar field
which governs the dynamics of the phase transition it

0 031-9163/82/0000-0000/$ 02.75 1982 North-Holland 175

Volume 117B, number 3,4
is necessary to sum all one-loop contributions from
gauge vector bosons with propagators inside the loops
being the functionals of the external classical gravita-
tional field. The latter should be accounted for com-
pletely. The renormalized effective action V[O, gik]
for arbitrary a(t) [where a(t) is the scale factor of an
isotropic homogeneous cosmological model] and O(t)
can be obtained and expressed as a mode sum and will
be discussed elsewhere. The most interesting case for
us is a(t) = a0 exp(Ht) - the de Sitter metric (so R/k =
-3H28ik), ]qb] ,~ m a x ( g O 2, OH). Then:
- 6 P / 6 0 = (3gZO/167r 2) ((g202 + 2 H 2) [~(3 + v)
+ ~(~ - v) + 21n(H/gO0) ] + ~ H 2}
+ (3/8~2)g2 ff]Oln [max(H, glOl)/gO0] + ....
where qJ is the logarithmic derivative of the ['-function,
v = ( -g202/H2)l/2 (fi = c = 1 is assumed throughout
this paper).
Kinetic O-terms are unimportant. The first term dif-
fers from the result of Shore [8] only by a term =
const. X g2H20 that corresponds to a different nor-
malization point of ~ in eq. (4) and is also unimpor-
tant.
At H "~ gO:
--6r/6qb = (3g20/87r 2) (g202 In IO/Ool
+ 2H21nlO/Ool + ~-H2 + ...).
The first term is just the derivative of the C o l e m a n -
Weinberg potential [7]. At H > gO:
- 6 p / 8 0 = (3g2OH2 /4n 2) [ln(H/gOo) + ~ - 3'1
3
+ ( 3 g 4 0 3 / 8 n2) [ln(H/gOo) + ~- - 3'] + ....
where 3' is the Euler constant. So, 8 P / 8 0 is the analytic
at = 0. The resulting equation for has the form:
I-]O - m 2 0 - ~RO + ~k003 = a r / a o ,
where m 2 = ko O2, so = O 0 is a solution at R = 0.
We assume further that H "~g200, so ln(gOo/H)
is large. Then we obtain a simple prescription that
(with a logarithmic accuracy) curvature effects on the
vector-boson loop can be accounted for by replacing
ln(IOI/qSo) in the Coleman-Weinberg effective poten-
tial with In[max(H/g, [OI)/O0] and by introducing a
new mass
176
PHYSICS LETTERS 11 November 1982
M2 =_m 2+12H2~
+ (3g2H2/4rg2) [ln(H/gO0 ) + 7 _ 3'] + 0(g4) (5)
The Coleman-Weinberg condition in flat space-time
is m 2 = k 0 = 0. The necessary condition for the new
inflationary scenario to occur is different:
IM2I ~ H 2 . (6)
Generalizing to more complex models and taking
also the thermal contribution from vector bosons into
account, we have
A(V10 + M 2 0 ) +Bg2T20 - C~.O 3 = 0 (7)
at the de Sitter stage where
(1) X = X(O) = -X 0 + (3g 4/87r 2) In [gO 0/max(H, glO[)]
~g4 >0,
for lOt "~ O 0 ; m 2 =Dg202;A = C = D = 1,B = ~- for
U(1);A = ~ , B = ~-, 7s C = -Tg-,
lSVS D = 2s
~- for SU(5). Here
the temperature T ~ a -1 oc exp(_Ht); H 2 =
nGCk(O) O4/6; in particular, H (GeV) = 4 X 1010 (mw/
1015 GeV) 2 for SU(5)..Eq. (7) is also valid for space-
dependent if IO,iO't[ "~g204.
The de Sitter stage begins when T "- m w >>H. At
this time interaction is small and the last term in eq.
(7) could be omitted. We get:
(2)
= (2rr)-3/zf d3k [Ok(t) exp(ikr) + c.c.],
~k + 3Hk +{[( k2 +k2)/a2] e x p ( - Z H t ) +M2) O k = 0,
(8)
where k 2 = Ikl 2, k g = Bg2a2T 2 = const. This equation
(3) is easily solved (see, e.g. ref. [9]) and the regularized
expression for (O 2) can be obtained under assumption
that before the phase transition there was a complete
thermal equilibrium:
(4) (O 2) = A T 2 / 12 + A 3/2H2 /8rr ~/Bg + (AH 3 t/4rr 2) 0 (t)
+ O(H 2 In (gOo/H)), (9)
where O(t) = 1, t > 0 and O(t) = 0, t < 0, and t = 0 is
chosen to correspond the moment when ko/a =
H(T ~H/g). Also t ~H/IM21 is assumed for simplicity.
The first and second terms in eq. (9) are due to thermal
fluctuations, the third term describes zero-temperature
fluctuations. If had non-thermal fluctuations at scales
larger than the horizon (H - 1 ) at the beginning of the
Volume 117B, number 3,4 PHYSICS LETTERS
de Sitter stage, then (qb2) gains additional constant
contribution depending on initial conditions for the
scalar field at earlier times. The third term becomes
the greatest one if l i t ~ g - 1 . After that time all tem-
perature effects can be neglected but the situation
does not resemble the zero-temperature behaviour in
flat space-time because space-time curvature changes
equations of motion. At t ~ H / I M 2 I >>H -1, (@2)
-+ const = 3AH4/87r2M 2 i f M 2 > 0 and (cb2)
( H 4 / I M 2 I ) exp(21M21t/3H) i f M 2 < 0 :~1. Com-
paring these results with ref. [6], we see that in this
paper fluctuations were underestimated at least by
two orders o f magnitude that changes final results
completely.
But a t i l t ~ 1/g 2 >> 1, when (4~2) ~ H2 /~/~ ~ H2/g 2,
self-interaction becomes significant. As a first step, let
us try the one-scalar-loop approximation though we
have no small parameter of 1IN type in this case, so
we can obtain only qualitatively correct results. In
this approximation, we have eq. (8) for k modified
by the additional term 3C~qbk(~2) in the right-hand
side, and <~2) = ((27r)-3 f d3k [~kl2)reg. The main
contribution to (~2) is made by the infra-red region
k 0 ~ k ~ aH where renormalization terms are small
compared to classical ones, so (q~2) can be correctly
approximated by (1/2r2)f0k =all dk Iq~kl2. Also small
in this region are the second derivatives in [] ~k as
compared to the 3Hob k term. Then the following
equation for u = (~2) can be obtained:
= - ( 2 M 2 / 3 H ) u + (2CX/AH)u 2 +AH3/4rr 2 , (10)
with the initial condition u = u 0 at t = 0. I f u 0
, H2/X, then one can safely put u 0 = 0. Let, in par-
ticular, IM2[ ~ x / ~ H 2, then the linear term in eq.
(10) is unimportant and
u = [AH2/2rr(2CX) 1/2] tg((CX/2)l/2Ht/rr). (1 1)
Returning back to eq. (7), one can estimate that the
second time derivative becomes important again when
u ~ H2/~ (spatial derivatives are still negligible). At
that moment the de Sitter stage ends. So the duration
of the de Sitter stage t o is:
Ht 0 = rr2/(2C3,) 1/2 ~ 1/g 2 . (12)
This result is in a qualitative agreement with Linde's
1 These results were also independently obtained recently
by Linde [ 10] and Vilenkin and Ford [ l I ].
11 November 1982
estimate [ l 0]. Inspection of other cases shows that eq.
(12) presents an upper bound on the duration of the
de Sitter stage (in caseM 2 > g 2 H 2 , t O means the time
of rolling down from the top of the potential = the
time of the exponential expansion of one bubble). In
the case o f SU(5), eq. (12) givesHt 0 ~ 2 - 3 - too
small. So our conclusion is that the phase transition
in the standard SU(5) model with m w ~ 1015 GeV
cannot give rise to the "new" inflationary scenario.
In a number of cases it is possible to go beyond the
one-scalar-loop approximation and account for the
interaction completely in the infrared region. Consider,
e.g., the caseM 2 < 0, x/-XH 2 ,~ IMZl , ~ H 2. Then the
interaction is not yet important at Ht ~ H2/IM21, but
since this time the contribution of momenta k ~ aH
to (~2) is negligible, So one can omit spatial and sec-
ond time derivatives in eq. (7) after that this equation
can be solved exactly even if cb is an operator (non-
commutativity o f ~ and is ~ e x p ( - 3 H t ) and can be
neglected):
(r, t)
~l(r) exp(lM2lt/3H)
{1 - (C'h/A {M21) qb~(r) [exp(2 {M21t[3I-I) - 1] } 1/2
(13)
Here ~l(r) is an initial condition for at some t
H/IM21 - some realization of quantum fluctuations
of a free scalar field. It is a stochastic function (or an
operator) which distribution is gaussian in the first ap-
proximation with
<@l(r)) = o ,
(qb2(r)) = 3dlq418rr21M2l +A312H2/87rx/rBg. (14)
The first term is due to vacuum fluctuations, the sec-
ond - due to thermal ones. The de Sitter stage ends
when formally #; -+ oo (really there is a cutoff at
~ H / x / ~ when the second time derivatives comes into
play). This takes place at
to(r ) = (3H/21M21) ln[AIM21/C'acb2(r)], (15)
e.g., at different time at different points of space [eq.
(13) and (15) are not applicable if b2 ~ H 4 / I M 2 1 ] .
Typically, to(r ) ~ (3H/2 IM21) ln(M4/M/4)
>>3H/2 IM21, but fluctuations of ~ are not small
[(~4> = 3((~2))2] so the values of to(r ) can differ very
significantly. The same idea can be used in other cases
177
Volume 117B, number 3,4 PHYSICS LETTERS
assuming that a sufficiently large fluctuation arises in
the infrared region.
The stochastic function to(r ) is directly related to
the amplitude of adiabatic perturbations generated in
the course of the phase transition. Let our clocks be
synchronized at the moment when the de Sitter stage
begins. The de Sitter stage ends at t = to(r). We have
from eq. (13):
b2(r, t) = 3AH/2CX[to(r ) - tl (16)
at 1 ~ H [ t o ( r ) - t] ~ H 2 / I M 2 1 . After that, q5 a n d a
are functions of t - to(r ). So the s p a c e - t i m e metric
changes in the following way:
ds 2 = d t 2 - exp(2Ht) dl 2
= d t 2 - exp[2Hto(r)] e x p { 2 H [ t - to(r)] } d/2
d t 2 - exp[2Hto(r)]a 2 [t - t0(t)] d/2
-+ d t 2 - exp[2Ht0(r)] t dl 2 , (17)
at t >> t 0. We obtain a particular type of the so-called
quasi-isotropic metric [12]. Next order corrections to
the metric are proportional to Vto(r ) and small as
long as X >> t. Therefore, though locally the metric
(17) looks like an isotropic one, globally it is very
anisotropic and inhomogeneous.
F o r small wavelengths which are inside the present
horizon, we can decompose q5 = qb(r, t) + ~k [~k
e x p ( i k r ) + c.c.] where cb(r, t) contains only large
wavelengths and satisfies eq. (7) and qbk satisfies eq.
(8) with M 2 _+M 2 _ 13C X/A) cb2 (r, t). Using eqs. (16)
and (17), the final result for the Fourier components
o f adiabatic perturbations can be found:
(6p/p)kLX= t ~ 5 h k = (2H~to) k
= (!~CX)1/2 ln3/2(kl/k)/k3/2 , (18)
where k 1 = a H at the end of the de Sitter stage (a/k 1
178
11 November 1982
10 -1 cm at the present time). Eq. (18) is valid if
1 ~ l n ( k l / k ) ~ min(H2/[M21, 1/x/~) and Lfhkl ~ 1.
So the spectrum of adiabatic perturbations, in contrast
to that of gravitational waves [ 13], is not exactly flat
(e.g., of Zeldovich type) but grows slowly to large
scales.
To obtain 5h <~ 10 - 4 at a scale ~ 1028 cm [ln(kl/k )
67] one needs an exceedingly small CX ~< 10 -10.
So our second conclusion is that the C o l e m a n -
Weinberg potential seems to be inappropriate for the
construction of an inflationary scenario. One should
either change the form of the potential or look for
some realistic damping mechanism.
The author is thankful to J.M. Bardeen, G.W.
Gibbons, A.H. Guth, J.B. Hartle, S.W. Hawking, A.D.
Linde, P.J. Steinhardt and M.S. Turner for many valu-
able discussions.
References
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[2] A.A. Starobinsky, Phys. Lett. 91B (1980) 99.
[3] A.D. Linde, Phys. Lett. 108B (1982) 389.
[4] S.W. Hawking and I.G. Moss, Phys. Lett. ll0B (1982)
35.
[5] A. Albrecht and P.J. Steinhardt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 48
(1982) 1220.
[61 A. Albrecht, P.J. Steinhardt, M.S. Turner and F. Wilczek,
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[71 S. Coleman and E. Weinberg, Phys. Rev. D7 (1973)
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[8] G.M. Shore, Ann. Phys. 128 (1980) 376.
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[ 10] A.D. Linde, Lebedev Physical Instiute preprint (1982).
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TUTP - 82 - 7 (1982).
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