Yes. The inflationary epoch, according to Alan Guth, occurred just after the Big Bang and was very brief.

Guth says these are the characteristics of the epoch:

*Extremely small portion of Universe ballooned outward in all directions at speeds much greater than the speed of light
*Becomes many billions of times its original size to become the visible Universe of today
*Inflated portion pushed much of the material that was originally near our location far beyond its boundaries
*Because the inflated portion was so small, its properties, such as temperature, were extremely homogeneous accounting for the homogeneity of the observable Universe
*Because the observable Universe is a tiny fraction of the entire Universe, it appears very flat, just as a football field can appear quite flat while actually being part of the curved surface of the earth

Though he says the epoch ended almost as quickly as it began, I have a hard time reconciling that with the observations of spacetime. We know that the further an object is from us, the faster it is receding from our view.

Therefore, objects far enough from us are receding faster than the speed of light. That means that spacetime is still expanding. The Dark Force is credited with this expansion so Guth's Inflation Theory seems to be saying that the inflationary epoch was caused by a different mechanism.