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Breaking eternal inflation: Empirical viability of a spontaneous collapse scenario

María Pía Piccirilli1,2,*, Gabriel León1,2,†, Rosa-Laura Lechuga-Solis3,4,5,‡, and Daniel Sudarsky5,6,§

  • *Contact author: mpp@fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar
  • †Contact author: gleon@fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar
  • ‡Contact author: rosalaura.lechugasolis@unipd.it
  • §Contact author: sudarsky@correo.nucleares.unam.mx
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 083505 – Published 2 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/wcb1-ftcz

Abstract

We revisit an inflationary scenario in which primordial inhomogeneities arise from a quantum collapse, a stochastic mechanism described in the context of quantum collapse theories in its continuous version and within semiclassical gravity. The predictions of the model in Cañate, Pearle, and Sudarsky [Phys. Rev. D 87, 104024 (2013).] and Lechuga and Sudarsky [J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2024) 038.] show a nonconventional scalar spectrum governed by two new parameters in the collapse rate, whose aim is twofold: on one side, to account for the primordial cosmic structure, and on the other to explain the suppression amplitude associated with long-wavelength modes, thereby eliminating the occurrence of eternal inflation. Furthermore, this model can contribute to accounting for the lack of power anomaly in the low l angular power spectra of the cosmic microwave background. Using the latest data from the Planck (2018) Collaboration, we establish observational constraints on the model parameters, which produce a characteristic low-ℓ suppression in the cosmic microwave background spectrum. We conclude that the Planck data support the solution presented in Lechuga and Sudarsky [J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2024) 038.], in other words, that the model allows us to solve simultaneously the emergence of the cosmic structure and, at the same time, avoid the eternal inflation scenario.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 083505– Published 2 April, 2026
  • Received 2 November 2025
  • Accepted 25 February 2026
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