Most high-energy constructions that realize a phase of cosmic inflation contain many degrees of freedom. Yet, cosmological observations are all consistent with single-field embeddings. We show how volume selection effects explain this apparent paradox. Because of quantum diffusion, different regions of space inflate by different amounts. In regions that inflate most, and eventually dominate the volume of the Universe, a generic mechanism is unveiled that diverts the inflationary dynamics towards single-field attractors. The formalism of constrained stochastic inflation is developed to this end.Received 2 November 2023Revised 20 March 2024Accepted 6 May 2024DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.251001© 2024 American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)
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