Formation of a ‘‘child’’ universe in an inflationary cosmological model

The evolution of a flat, spherically symmetric cosmological model, containing radiation and an inhomogeneous scalar field, is simulated numerically to determine whether the inhomogeneity could cause a ‘‘child’’ universe, connected by a wormhole to the external universe, to form. The gravitational and field quantities were computed self-consistently by means of the techniques of numerical relativity. Although we were unable to follow the process to its completion, preliminary indications are that the ‘‘budding’’ phenomenon could occur under very general initial conditions, as long as the scalar field is sufficiently inhomogeneous that the wormhole forms before the inflation is damped by the expansion of the background spacetime.