English

Cosmic bounce and phantom-like equation of state from tunnelling

High Energy Physics - Theory 2023-06-07 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We allow a scalar field on a flat FLRW background metric to tunnel between two degenerate vacua. The resulting true vacuum state then violates the Null Energy Condition, and the corresponding homogeneous fluid induces a bounce, after which it has a phantom-like equation of state and asymptotically leads to a de Sitter phase. The mechanism presented here requires no exotic matter or modified gravity, it is purely generated by quantum fluctuations and is valid for a generic double well potential.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2301.08652,
  title  = {Cosmic bounce and phantom-like equation of state from tunnelling},
  author = {Jean Alexandre and Silvia Pla},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.08652},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

Comments added; 22 pages, 3 figures