Dark Energy and Inflation in a Gravitational Wave Dominated Universe

Understand

The empty space (with no matter fields) is not really empty because of natural metric fluctuations, quantum and classical.

• We show that gravitons as well as classical gravitational waves of super-horizon wavelengths are able to form the de Sitter state of the empty homogeneous isotropic Universe.
• This state is the exact solution to the self-consistent equations of one-loop quantum gravity for gravitons in the empty FLRW space.
• It also is the exact solution to the self-consistent equations of back reaction for classical gravitational waves.