Emergent cosmology, inflation and dark energy

A new class of gravity–matter models defined in terms of two independent non-Riemannian volume forms (alternative generally covariant integration measure densities) on the space–time manifold are studied in some detail. These models involve an additional R²(square of the scalar curvature) term as well as scalar matter field potentials of appropriate form so that the pertinent action is invariant under global Weyl-scale symmetry. Scale invariance is spontaneously broken upon integration of the equations of motion for the auxiliary volume-form degrees of freedom. After performing transition to the physical Einstein frame we obtain: (1) an effective potential for the scalar field with two flat regions which allows for a unified description of both early universe inflation as well as of present dark energy epoch; (2) for a definite parameter range the model possesses a non-singular “emergent universe” solution which describes an initial phase of evolution that precedes the inflationary phase; (3) for a reasonable choice of the parameters the present model conforms to the Planck Collaboration data.