Cosmic Inflation from Emergent Spacetime Picture

We argue that the emergent spacetime picture admits a background-independent formulation of cosmic inflation. The inflation in this picture corresponds to the dynamical emergence of spacetime while the conventional inflation is simply an (exponential) expansion of a preexisting spacetime owing to the vacuum energy carried by an inflaton field. We show that the cosmic inflation arises as a time-dependent solution of the matrix quantum mechanics describing the dynamical process of Planck energy condensate in vacuum without introducing any inflaton field as well as an {\it ad hoc} inflation potential. Thus the emergent spacetime picture realizes a background-independent description of the inflationary universe which has a sufficiently elegant and explanatory power to defend the integrity of physics against the multiverse hypothesis.