I Exponential expansion of inflation

In what source? Please give a specific reference.

 

Ok, so can you give a specific quote and page/section reference?

 

I would say the "more or less exponentially" is a consequence of the "slowly varying vacuum energy". As I understand it, only a vacuum energy that is exactly constant will lead to an expansion that is exactly exponential.

 

Is there, though? As I understand the basic inflation model, the Standard Model fields are all in their vacuum states during inflation, and all of these fields have zero vacuum expectation value for energy; they only get reheated to highly non-vacuum, high temperature states at the end of inflation.