English

Affine ANEC selects the closed FRW branch for geodesically complete cosmology

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2026-05-20 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We study the relation between geodesic completeness, the averaged null energy condition (ANEC), and spatial curvature in Friedmann--Robertson--Walker (FRW) cosmology within classical general relativity. Using the affinely parameterized ANEC along radial null geodesics, we prove that non-static flat or open FRW spacetimes in the regular classes considered here cannot be both null geodesically complete and ANEC-satisfying. Bounded oscillatory or cyclic flat/open models do not circumvent the obstruction: the negative affine-ANEC bulk term accumulates over infinitely many cycles, giving IANEC=I_{\rm ANEC}=-\infty for non-static periodic cases. Equivalently, within these classes, non-static ANEC-satisfying flat or open models are null incomplete. The sign obstruction is absent in closed (k=+1)(k=+1) FRW geometry, where the positive curvature term enters the affine ANEC identity with the opposite sign and can support nonsingular, geodesically complete cosmologies with ordinary NEC-respecting matter. We give explicit closed-FRW scalar-field constructions, including a fully analytic quadratic reconstruction and a cubic-root reconstruction in closed quadrature, and contrast them with their flat realizations, which require NEC-violating support. Furthermore, we quantify how positive curvature can bias flat-model reconstructions toward an effective phantom equation of state, finding only a percent-level effect under current curvature bounds. The result is a curvature classification of ANEC-compatible eternal FRW cosmology: flat and open branches are obstructed, while the closed branch admits explicit complete realizations, with global de Sitter appearing as the vacuum limiting representative.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.18965,
  title  = {Affine ANEC selects the closed FRW branch for geodesically complete cosmology},
  author = {Nathan L. Burwig and Damien A. Easson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.18965},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

53 pages, 2 tables, 3 figures