Evolution of vacuum fluctuations generated during and before inflation
Abstract
We calculate the time evolution of the expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor for a minimally-coupled massless scalar field in cosmological spacetimes, with an application to dark energy in mind. We first study the evolution from inflation until the present, fixing the Bunch-Davies initial condition. The energy density of a quantum field evolves as in the matter-dominated (MD) period, where and are the Hubble parameters during inflation and at each moment. Its equation of state, , changes from a negative value to in the radiation-dominated period, and from to in the MD period. We then consider possible effects of a Planckian universe, which may have existed before inflation, by assuming there was another inflation with the Hubble parameter . In this case, modes with wavelengths longer than the current horizon radius are mainly amplified, and the energy density of a quantum field grows with time as in the MD period, where and are the scale factors at each time and at present. Hence, if is of the order of the Planck scale , becomes comparable to the critical density at the present time. The contribution to from the long wavelength fluctuations generated before the ordinary inflation has in the free field approximation. We mention a possibility that interactions further amplify the energy density and change the equation of state.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1402.6900,
title = {Evolution of vacuum fluctuations generated during and before inflation},
author = {Hajime Aoki and Satoshi Iso and Yasuhiro Sekino},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.6900},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
54 pages, 12 figures; v2: references added; v3:version publised in PRD