Title: Eternal inflation and the quantum birth of cosmic structure,
Abstract: We consider the eternal inflation scenario of the slow-roll/chaotic type with
the additional element of an objective collapse of the wave function. The
incorporation of this new agent to the traditional inflationary setting might
represent a possible solution to the quantum measurement problem during
inflation, a subject that has not reached a consensus among the community.
Specifically, it could provide an explanation for the generation of the
primordial anisotropies and inhomogeneities, starting from a perfectly
symmetric background and invoking symmetric dynamics. We adopt the continuous
spontaneous localization model, in the context of inflation, as the dynamical
reduction mechanism that generates the primordial inhomogeneities. Furthermore,
when enforcing the objective reduction mechanism, the condition for eternal
inflation can be bypassed. In particular, the collapse mechanism incites the
wave function, corresponding to the inflaton, to localize itself around the
zero mode of the field. Then the zero mode will evolve essentially unperturbed,
driving inflation to an end in any region of the Universe where inflation
occurred. Also, our approach achieves a primordial spectrum with an amplitude
and shape consistent with the one that best fits the observational data.