English

Entropy of a Classical Stochastic Field and Cosmological Perturbation

Astrophysics 2009-10-22 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We propose a general definition of nonequilibrium entropy of a classical stochastic field. As an example of particular interest in cosmology we apply this definition to compute the entropy of density perturbations in an inflationary Universe. On the scales of structures in the Universe, the entropy of density perturbations dominates over the statistical fluctuations of the entropy of cosmic microwave photons, indicating the relevance of the entropy of density fluctuations for structure formation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9206005,
  title  = {Entropy of a Classical Stochastic Field and Cosmological Perturbation},
  author = {R. Brandenberger and V. Mukhanov and T. Prokopec},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9206005},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

10 pages, uses phyzzx; BROWN-HET-859