Gravitational Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
Abstract
The spontaneous violation of Lorentz and diffeomorphism invariance in a phase near the big bang lowers the entropy, allowing for an arrow of time and the second law of thermodynamics. The spontaneous symmetry breaking leads to , where is the rotational symmetry of the Friedmann-Lema\^{i}tre-Robertson-Walker spacetime. The Weyl curvature tensor vanishes in the FLRW spacetime satisfying the Penrose zero Weyl curvature conjecture. The requirement of a measure of gravitational entropy is discussed. The vacuum expectation value for a vector field acts as an order parameter and at the critical temperature a phase transition occurs breaking the Lorentz symmetry spontaneously. During the ordered symmetry phase the entropy is vanishingly small and for as the universe expands the anti-restored Lorentz symmetry leads to a disordered phase and a large increase in entropy creating the arrow of time.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1407.1026,
title = {Gravitational Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics},
author = {J. W. Moffat},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.1026},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
4 pages, no figures