In this work, we consider effects of the dynamical vacuum in quantum cosmology in presence of a minimum length introduced by the GUP (generalized uncertainty principle) related to the modified commutation relation $[\hat{X},\hat{P}] := \frac{i\hbar}{ 1 - β\hat{P}^2 }$ . We determine the wave function of the Universe $ ψ_{qp}(ξ,t)$, which is solution of the modified Wheeler-DeWitt equation in the representation of the quasi-position space, in the limit where the scale factor of the Universe is small. Although $ψ_{qp}(ξ,t)$ is a physically acceptable state it is not a realizable state of the Universe because $ ψ_{qp}(ξ,t)$ has infinite norm, as in the ordinary case with no minimal length.
We propose a distinguished set of positive and negative energy modes of the Klein-Gordon equation as a time independent definition of the vacuum state of a quantized scalar field.
We consider the cosmology of a 3-brane universe, in a five dimensional space time (Bulk). We present some solutions to the five-dimensional Einstein equation, where a perfect fluid is confined to the 3-brane. We investigate the evolution of brane for two models of bulk. We choose ordinary and modified polytropic gas in brane and it is seen that these models have some new features.
A calculation of the one-mode occupation numbers for vacuum fluctuations of massive fields in De Sitter space shows that their use for the generation of classical density perturbations in inflationary cosmology very much depends on their masses and conformal couplings. A new mechanism for the decoherence of relatively massive fields has been identified. A similar analysis of the power law inflation shows that production of adiabatic density perturbations may not take place in models with power p < 3.
Three different methods viz. i) a perturbative analysis of the Schrödinger equation ii) abstract differential geometric method and iii) a semiclassical reduction of the Wheeler-Dewitt equation, relating Pancharatnam phase to vacuum instability are discussed. An improved semiclassical reduction is also shown to yield the correct zeroth order semicalssical Einstein equations with backreaction. This constitutes an extension of our earlier discussions on the topic
Dark energy is one of the greatest scientific mysteries of today. The idea that dark energy originates from quantum vacuum fluctuations has circulated since the late '60s, but theoretical estimations of vacuum energy have disagreed with the measured value by many orders of magnitude, until recently. Lifshitz theory applied to cosmology has produced the correct order of magnitude for dark energy. Furthermore, the theory is based on well-established and experimentally well-tested grounds in atomic, molecular and optical physics. In this paper, we confront Lifshitz cosmology with astronomical dat…
Introducing a variable cosmological function $Λ(t)$ in a geometrical manner from a 5D Riemann-flat metric, we investigate the possibility of having a geometrical criterion to choose a suitable cosmological function $Λ(t)$ for every 4D dynamical hypersurface capable of generate phantom cosmologies.
We examine in a cosmological context the conditions for unbroken supersymmetry in N=1 supergravity in D=10 dimensions. We show that the cosmological solutions of the equations of motion obtained considering only the bosonic sector correspond to vacuum states with spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. With a non vanishing gravitino-dilatino condensate we find a solution of the equations of motion that satisfies necessary conditions for unbroken supersymmetry and that smoothly interpolates between Minkowski space and DeSitter space with a linearly growing dilaton, thus providing a possible example…
The canonical quantization of the most general minisuperspace actions --i.e. with all six scale factor as well as the lapse function and the shift vector present-- describing the vacuum type II, VI and VII geometries, is considered. The reduction to the corresponding physical degrees of freedom is achieved through the usage of the linear constraints as well as the quantum version of the entire set of classical integrals of motion.
In this paper we construct new solutions of the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet field equations in an isotropic Shiromizu-Maeda-Sasaki brane-world setting which represent a couple of $Z_2$-symmetric vacuum thin shells splitting from the central brane, and explore the main properties of the dynamics of the system. The matching of the separating vacuum shells with the brane-world is as smooth as possible and all matter fields are restricted to the brane. We prove the existence of these solutions, derive the criteria for their existence, analyse some fundamental aspects or their evolution and demonstrate t…
An analysis of the decoherence of quantum fluctuations shows that production of classical adiabatic density perturbations may not take place in models of power-law inflation with power 1< p < 3. Some consequences for models of extended inflation are pointed out. In general, the condition for decoherence places new constraint on inflationary models, which does not depend on often complicated subsequent evolution.
The existence of point symmetries in the cosmological field equations of generalized vacuum scalar--tensor theories is considered within the context of the spatially homogeneous cosmologies. It is found that such symmetries only occur in the Brans--Dicke theory when the dilaton field self--interacts. Moreover, the interaction potential of the dilaton must take the form of a cosmological constant. For the spatially flat, isotropic model, it is shown how this point symmetry may be employed to generate a discrete scale factor duality in the Brans--Dicke action.
Starting from a five-dimensional (5D) vacuum theory of gravity where the extra coordinate is considered as noncompact, we investigate the possibility of inducing four-dimensional (4D) phantom scenarios by applying form-invariance symmetry transformations. In particular we obtain phantom scenarios for two cosmological frameworks. In the first framework we deal with an induced 4D de-Sitter expansion and in the second one a 4D induced model where the expansion of the universe is dominated by a decreasing cosmological parameter $Λ(t)$ is discussed.
We investigate the role played by the vacuum of the primordial fluctuations in hybrid Loop Quantum Cosmology. We consider scenarios where the inflaton potential is a mass term and the unperturbed quantum geometry is governed by the effective dynamics of Loop Quantum Cosmology. In this situation, the phenomenologically interesting solutions have a preinflationary regime where the kinetic energy of the inflaton dominates over the potential. For these kind of solutions, we show that the primordial power spectra depend strongly on the choice of vacuum. We study in detail the case of adiabatic stat…
The second order Ordinary Differential Equation which describes the unknown part of the solution space of some vacuum Bianchi Cosmologies is completely integrated for Type III, thus obtaining the general solution to Einstein's Field Equations for this case, with the aid of the sixth Painlevé transcendent $P_{VI}$. For particular representations of $P_{VI}$ we obtain the known Kinnersley two-parameter space-time and a solution of Euclidean signature. The imposition of the space-time generalization of a "hidden" symmetry of the generic Type III spatial slice, enables us to retrieve the two-param…
Short review of riddles that lie at the intersection of quantum theory, particle physics and cosmology; dark energy as false vacuum; discussion of a possible detection experiment.
In this work we show how the criterion of asymptotic Hamiltonian diagonalization originated in hybrid quantum cosmology serves to pick out a unique vacuum for the Dirac field in de Sitter, in the context of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes. This criterion is based on the dynamical definition of annihilation and creationlike variables for the fermionic field, which obey the linearized dynamics of a Hamiltonian that has been diagonalized in a way that is adapted to its local spatial structure. This leads to fermionic variables that possess a precise asymptotic expansion in the ultraviol…
Production of gravitational vacuum defects and their contribution to the energy density of our Universe are discussed. These topological microstructures (defects) could be produced in the result of creation of the Universe from "nothing" when a gravitational vacuum condensate has appeared. They must be isotropically distributed over the isotropic expanding Universe. After Universe inflation these microdefects are smoothed, stretched and broken up. A part of them could survive and now they are perceived as the structures of Lambda-term and an unclustered dark matter. It is shown that the parame…
By regarding the vacuum as a perfect fluid with equation of state p=-rho, de Sitter's cosmological model is quantized. Our treatment differs from previous ones in that it endows the vacuum with dynamical degrees of freedom. Instead of being postulated from the start, the cosmological constant arises from the degrees of freedom of the vacuum regarded as a dynamical entity, and a time variable can be naturally introduced. Taking the scale factor as the sole degree of freedom of the gravitational field, stationary and wave-packet solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation are found. It turns out th…
We address the question how to adapt cosmological constant $Λ$ for description of a vacuum dark energy density jumping from the big initial value to the small today value suggested by observations. We find such a possibility in the gauge-noninvariance of quantum cosmology which leads to a connection between a choice of the gauge and quantum spectrum for a certain physical quantity which can be specified in the framework of the minisuperspace model. We introduce a particular gauge in which the cosmological constant $Λ$ is quantized and show that making a measurement of $Λ$ today one can find it…
We study the dynamical properties of a large body of varying vacuum cosmologies for which dark matter interacts with vacuum. In particular, performing the critical point analysis we investigate the existence and the stability of cosmological solutions which describe de-Sitter, radiation and matter dominated eras. We find several cases of varying vacuum models that admit stable critical points, hence they can be used in describing the cosmic history.
The theory of symmetries of systems of coupled, ordinary differential equations (ODE) is used to develop a concise algorithm in order to obtain the entire space of solutions to vacuum Bianchi Einstein Field Equations (EFEs). The symmetries used are the well known automorphisms of the Lie algebra for the corresponding isometry group of each Bianchi Type, as well as the scaling and the time re-parametrization symmetry. The application of the method to Type VII_h results in (a) obtaining the general solution of Type VII_0 with the aid of the third Painlevé transcendental (b) obtaining the general…
In this paper, we investigate the evolution of primordial black hole (PBH) in vacuum-dominated era within Brans-Dicke cosmology. We consider the accretion of vacuum energy by PBHs and found that vacuum energy accretion efficiency should be less than 0.61. We also study the evaporation of PBHs where we conclude that larger the value of accretion efficiency longer live the PBHs. We also find that PBHs evaporate at a quicker rate in Brans-Dicke theory compared with Standard Cosmology.
The notion of vacuum fluctuations of the gravitational field plays important role in cosmology. The strong variable gravitational field of the very early Universe amplifies these fluctuations and transforms them into macroscopical cosmological perturbations. Since the underlying process is the parametric amplification, the perturbations are placed in squeezed vacuum quantum states. It is possible that we already see the manifestations of these processes in certain cosmological observations.
Comments on the paper "Late Time Behavior of false Vacuum Decay: Possible Implications for Cosmology and Metastable Inflating States" [arXiv:0711.1821] by L. M. Krauss and J. Dent are presented and the possible behavior of the unstable false vacuum at very late times, where deviations from the exponential decay law become to be dominant is analyzed.
We study the compatibility of the quantum homogeneitiy and isotropy hypothesis (QHIH), proposed by Ashtekar and Gupt to restrict the choice of vacuum state for the cosmological perturbations in Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC), with the requirement that the selected vacuum should lead to a power spectrum that does not oscillate. We inspect in close detail the procedure that these authors followed to construct a set of states satisfying the QHIH, and how a preferred vacuum can be determined within this set. We find a step that is not univocally specified in this procedure, in relation with the repl…
In this work I discuss the dynamical and thermodynamical equivalence between a general k-essence scalar field cosmology and an arbitrary cosmological model with a decaying vacuum, thus generalizing the approach proposed by Maia and Lima [Phys. Rev. D {\bf 65}, 083513 (2002)]. The formalism obtained is quite general and holds for any non-canonical scalar field model. As a special case I derive a Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) model with an exponential potential and constant speed of sound, and show that it is equivalent to a cosmological model with decay law $Λ(H) = 3βH^2$.
In this thesis we present detailed analyses on various running vacuum models (RVM's), in which the vacuum energy density "runs" with the cosmic expansion. The RVM's are motivated from the renormalization group formalism of Quantum Field Theory in curved spacetime. In this theoretical framework, the vacuum energy density depends explicitly on the Hubble function and its time derivative and thus does not remain constant, in contradistinction to the standard $Λ$CDM picture. Upon studying how these models fit the data, we can determine whether this dynamical behavior is favored by observations or …
We introduce network science as a framework for studying the string landscape. Two large networks of string geometries are constructed, where nodes are extra-dimensional six-manifolds and edges represent topological transitions between them. We show that a standard bubble cosmology model on the networks has late-time behavior determined by the largest eigenvector of $-(\mathbf{L} + \mathbf{D})$, where $\mathbf{L}$ and $\mathbf{D}$ are the Laplacian and degree matrices of the networks, which provides a dynamical mechanism for vacuum selection in the string landscape.
We investigate the cosmological model with complex scalar self-interacting inflaton field non-minimally coupled to gravity. The different geometries of the Euclidean classically forbidden regions are represented. The instanton solutions of the corresponding Euclidean equations of motion are found by numerical calculations. These solutions give a rather non-trivial examples of real tunnelling geometries. Possible interpretation of obtained results and their connection with inflationary cosmology is discussed.
We present a simple, exact and self-consistent cosmology with a phenomenological model of quantum creation of radiation due to decay of the scalar field. The decay drives a non-isentropic inflationary epoch, which exits smoothly to the radiation era, without reheating. The initial vacuum for radiation is a regular Minkowski vacuum. The created radiation obeys standard thermodynamic laws, and the total entropy produced is consistent with the accepted value. We analyze the difference between the present model and a model with decaying cosmological constant previously considered.
The possibility that the vacuum energy density $ρ_Λ$ is, indeed, varying in time, has been investigated lately from the running vacuum models perspective. Motivated by such models, in the present work, we relate the decaying vacuum energy $ρ_Λ(t)$ with a scalar field $ϕ$. We derive the equations of motion from such a premise and implement the first-order formalism in order to obtain analytical solutions to the cosmological parameters. We show that those are in agreement with recent Planck observational data. We discuss the physical consequences of having $ρ_Λ(t)$ related to $ϕ$.
First a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe filled with dust and a conformally invariant scalar field is quantized. For the closed model we find a discrete set of wormhole quantum states. In the case of flat spacelike sections we find states with classical behaviour at small values of the scale factor and quantum behaviour for large values of the scale factor. Next we study a FRW model with a conformally invariant scalar field and a nonvanishing cosmological constant dynamically introduced by regarding the vacuum as a perfect fluid. The ensuing Wheeler-DeWitt equation turns out to be a b…
In the context of Finsler-Randers theory we consider, for a first time, the cosmological scenario of the varying vacuum. In particular, we assume the existence of a cosmological fluid source described by an ideal fluid and the varying vacuum terms. We determine the cosmological history of this model by performing a detailed study on the dynamics of the field equations. We determine the limit of General Relativity, while we find new eras in the cosmological history provided by the geometrodynamical terms provided by the Finsler-Randers theory.
Recently, the tachyon cosmology has been represented as dark energy model to support the current acceleration of the universe without phantom crossing. In this paper, we study the dynamics of the tachyon cosmology in which the field plays the role of tachyon field and also non--minimally coupled to the matter lagrangian. The model shows current universe acceleration and also phantom crossing in the future. Two cosmological tests are also performed to validate the model; the difference in the distance modulus and the model independent Cosmological Redshift Drift (CRD) test.
We generalize the scalar tensor bigravity models to the non-minimal kinetic coupling scalar tensor bigravity models with two scalar fields whose kinetic terms are non-minimally coupled to two Einstein tensors constructed by two metrics. We show that a broad class of expanding universes can be explained by some solutions of this model. Then, we study the stability issue of the solutions by means of imposing homogeneous perturbation on the equations of motion and extract the stable solutions.
Within the scope of a FRW cosmological model we have studied the role of spinor field in the evolution of the Universe when it is non-minimally coupled to the gravitational one. We have considered a few types of nonlinearity. It was found that if the spinor field nonlinearity describes an ordinary matter such as radiation, the presence of non-minimality becomes essential and leads to the rapid expansion of the Universe, whereas if the spinor field nonlinearity describes a dark energy, the evolution of the Universe is dominated by it and the difference between the minimal and non-minimally coup…
The vacuum cosmological model on the manifold $R \times M_1 \times \ldots \times M_n$ describing the evolution of $n$ Einstein spaces of non-zero curvatures is considered. For $n = 2$ the Einstein equations are reduced to the Abel (ordinary differential) equation and solved, when $(N_1 = $dim $ M_1, N_2 = $ dim$ M_2) = (6,3), (5,5), (8,2)$. The Kasner-like behaviour of the solutions near the singularity $t_s \to +0$ is considered ($t_s$ is synchronous time). The exceptional ("Milne-type") solutions are obtained for arbitrary $n$. For $n=2$ these solutions are attractors for other ones, when $t…
Recent works showing that homogeneous and isotropic cosmologies involving scalar fields correspond to geodesics of certain augmented spaces are generalized to the non-minimal coupling case. As the Maupertuis-Jacobi principle in classical mechanics, this result allows us, in principle, to infer some of the dynamical properties of the cosmologies from the geometry of the associated augmented spaces.
Quantum Cosmology and Gravity are formulated here as the primary and secondary quantizations of the energy constraints by analogy with the historical formulation of quantum field theory. New fact is that both the Universe and its matter are created from stable vacuum obtained by the Bogoliubov-type transformation just as it is in the theory of quantum superfluid liquid. Such the Quantum Gravity gives us possibility to explain topical problems of cosmology by the cosmological creation of universes and particles from vacuum.
Soliton solutions are recovered as scale-invariant asymptotic states of vacuum inhomogeneous cosmologies using renormalization group method. The stability analysis of these states is also given.
We study a tachyon model with non-minimal derivative coupling to gravity in the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker flat cosmology. We propose the special re-definition of the tachyon field which allows us to represent tachyon field equation formally coinciding with its usual form but with re-defined Hubble parameter. Two first integrals for the model equations are obtained that can essentially simplify both further analysis and analytical solving for the model. These integrals become the trivial identities in the case of minimal coupling. The effective energy density and pressure of the tachyon field …
This contribution reviews recent work on a new approach to the cosmological constant problem, which starts from the macroscopic behavior of a conserved relativistic microscopic variable q. First, the statics of the vacuum energy density is discussed and, then, the dynamics in a cosmological context.
In present paper the gravitational effect of spontaneous symmetry breaking vacuum energy density is investigated by subtracting the flat space-time contribution from the energy in the curved space-time. We found that the remain effective energy-momentum tensor is too small to cause the acceleration of the universe although it satisfies the characteristic of the dark energy. However it could provide a promising explanation to the puzzle why the gravitational effect produced by the huge symmetry breaking vacuum energy in the electroweak theory has not been observed, since it has a sufficient sma…
Several time dependent backgrounds, with perfect fluid matter, can be used to construct solutions of Einstein equations in the presence of a negative cosmological constant along with some matter sources. In this work we focus on the non-vacuum Kasner-AdS geometry and its solitonic generalization. To characterize these space-times, we provide ways to embed them in higher dimensional flat space-times. General space-like geodesics are then studied and used to compute the two point boundary correlators within the geodesic approximation.
The cosmological constant, also known as dark energy, was believed to be caused by vacuum fluctuations, but naive calculations give results in stark disagreement with fact. In the Casimir effect, vacuum fluctuations cause forces in dielectric media, which is very well described by Lifshitz theory. Recently, using the analogy between geometries and media, a cosmological constant of the correct order of magnitude was calculated with Lifshitz theory [U. Leonhardt, Ann. Phys. (New York) 411, 167973 (2019)]. This paper discusses the empirical evidence and the ideas behind the Lifshitz theory of the…
The behavior of the gravitating vacuum energy density in an expanding universe is discussed. A scenario is presented with a step-wise relaxation of the vacuum energy density. The vacuum energy density moves from plateau to plateau and follows, on average, the steadily decreasing matter energy density. The current plateau with a small positive value of the vacuum energy density (effective cosmological constant) may result from a still not equilibrated contribution of the light massive neutrinos to the quantum vacuum.
The quantization of the most general Bianchi Type II geometry -with all six scale factors, as well as the lapse function and the shift vector, present- is considered. In an earlier work, a first reduction of the initial 6-dimensional configuration space, to a 4-dimensional one, has been achieved by the usage of the information furnished by the quantum form of the linear constraints. Further reduction of the space in which the wave function -obeying the Wheeler-DeWitt equation- lives, is accomplished by unrevealling the extra symmetries of the Hamiltonian. These symmetries appear in the form of…
The source of the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe is still unknown. We examine some consequences of the possible scale invariance of the empty space at large scales. The central hypothesis of this work is that, at macroscopic and large scales where General Relativity may be applied, the empty space in the sense it is used in the Minkowski metric, is also scale invariant. It is shown that if this applies, the Einstein cosmological constant and the scale factor of the scale invariant framework are related by two differential equations.
Quantum cosmology is investigated in a de Sitter minisuperspace model with a quantized scalar field non-minimally coupled to curvature. Quantum states of the scalar field must satisfy the regularity condition, which requires that the probability of field fluctuations should not increase with their amplitude. We show that this condition imposes constraints on the allowed values of the curvature coupling parameter $ξ$. This is a surprising result, since the field dynamics depends only on the combination $m^2+ξR$, where $m$ is the field mass and $R = \mathrm{const}$ is the curvature, and does not…
We present a simple and self-consistent cosmology with a phenomenological model of quantum creation of radiation and matter due to decay of the cosmological constant $Λ$. The decay drives a non-isentropic inflationary epoch, which exits smoothly to the radiation-dominated era, without reheating, and then evolves to the dust era. The initial vacuum for radiation and matter is a regular Minkowski vacuum. The created radiation and matter obeys standard thermodynamic laws, and the total entropy produced is consistent with the accepted value. This paper is an extension of the model with the decayin…
For the Bianchi type I space-time (vacuum or with a massless scalar field), the loop quantum cosmology bounce can be viewed as a rapid transition between two classical solutions, with a simple transformation rule relating the Kasner exponents of the two epochs. This transformation rule can be extended to other Bianchi space-times under the assumption that during the loop quantum cosmology bounce the contribution of the spatial curvature to the Hamiltonian constraint is negligible compared to the kinetic terms. For the vacuum Bianchi type IX space-time there are transformation rules for how eac…
NMDC-Palatini cosmology in slow-roll regime is of our interests. We present flat FLRW cosmological NMDC-Palatini field equations and acceleration condition. Late time trajectory is approximated. Chaotic inflation potential is considered here as it is viable in a range of positive coupling constant as constrained by CMB results. Phase portraits show that the NMDC-Palatini gives new saddle-point solutions. In $V \propto ϕ^2$ potential, the NMDC-Palatini effect enlarges the acceleration-allowed region from that of GR case.
By allowing for non zero vacuum expectation values for some of the fields that appear in the Hamiltonian constraint of canonical general relativity a time variable, with usual properties, can be identified; the constraint plays the role of the ordinary Hamiltonian. The energy eigenvalues contribute to the variation of the scale parameter similarly to the way matter density does. For a universe described by a superposition of eigenstates or by a thermodynamic ensemble the dominant contribution comes from energy, or equivalently effective matter density, of the same order as the vacuum energy (c…
The recent suggestion that late time quantum dynamics may be important for resolving cosmological issues associated with our observed universe requires a consideration of several subtle issues associated with quantum cosmology, as we describe here. The resolution of these issues will be important if we are to be able to properly ascribe probability measures associated with eternal inflation, and a string landscape.
