The emergent universe: an explicit construction

We provide a realization of a singularity-free inflationary universe in the form of a simple cosmological model dominated at early times by a single minimally coupled scalar field with a physically based potential. The universe starts asymptotically from an initial Einstein static state, which may be large enough to avoid the quantum gravity regime. It enters an expanding phase that leads to inflation followed by reheating and a standard hot big bang evolution. We discuss the basic characteristics of this emergent model and show that none is at odds with current observations.