Early Universes with Effective Discrete Time
  The mechanism for triggering the universe inflation could be that at very early periods the time variable was discrete instead of smooth. Alternatively, and perhaps equivalently, it could be the consequence that the metrics of the early universe was a strongly concentrated gravitational coherent state with very high frequency oscillations, allowing local pair creations by a generalisation to gravity of the Schwinger mechanism, perhaps by creation of black holes of masses superior to the Planck scale. The lattice spacing between two clicks in the discrete time picture corresponds to the inverse frequency of the gravitational coherent state in the other picture. In both cases, a much lower time than the Planck time might represent a new fundamental scale, giving new type of physics. To make possible a concrete estimation of the pair production probability, we propose that the oscillating coherent state metrics that defines this very early geometry minimises the Einstein gravity action coupled to interacting 1-,2- and 3-forms. Part of our intuition relies on a condensed matter analogy with laser-induced superconductivity. An independent section suggests that the new physical time scale we introduce for the Markovian discret time of the pre-inflation epoch can be identified with the stochastic time one uses for standard quantisation in the post-inflation limit. In the pre-inflation phase its discreteness is the observable driving force for the universe evolution, while in the post inflation phase it becomes unobservable and it can can effectively replaced by the continuous time coordinate of standard quantum field theory. 
Laurent Baulieu
hep-th