Casimir energy and a cosmological bounce
Abstract
We review different computation methods for the renormalised energy momentum tensor of a quantised scalar field in an Einstein Static Universe. For the extensively studied conformally coupled case we check their equivalence; for different couplings we discuss violation of different energy conditions. In particular, there is a family of masses and couplings which violate the weak and strong energy conditions but do not lead to spacelike propagation. Amongst these cases is that of a minimally coupled massless scalar field with no potential. We also point out a particular coupling for which a massless scalar field has vanishing renormalised energy momentum tensor. We discuss the backreaction problem and in particular the possibility that this Casimir energy could both source a short inflationary epoch and avoid the big bang singularity through a bounce.
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-th/0510052,
title = {Casimir energy and a cosmological bounce},
author = {Carlos A. R. Herdeiro and Marco Sampaio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0510052},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
13 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures