INFLATION IN OPEN FLRW UNIVERSES

Inflation has become a successful paradigm of the evolution of the early history of the universe. One of the main predictions from this model is that the cosmological density parameter OMEGA should be very close to unity at the present epoch. This has led to a firm belief in the existence of dark matter as the major component of the density of the universe. However, recent observations indicate that OMEGA0 may in fact not be unity. Also, recent investigations by Ellis and others have indicated that inflation need not necessarily lead to OMEGA = 1. We investigate this claim further by making use of a pre-inflationary coasting phase.