Open Inflation Without False Vacua

Abstract

We show that within the framework of a definite proposal for the initial conditions for the universe, the Hartle-Hawking `no boundary' proposal, open inflation is generic and does not require any special properties of the inflaton potential. In the simplest inflationary models, the semiclassical approximation to the Euclidean path integral and a minimal anthropic condition lead to ${\Omega }_0\approx 0.01$. This number may be increased in models with more fields or extra dimensions.

Comments: 10 pages, compressed and RevTex file with one postscript figure, openlet1.ps