Related papers: Bulk viscosity and deflationary universes
The present work deals with a cosmological model having particle creation mechanism in the framework of irreversible thermodynamics. In the second order non-equilibrium thermodynamical prescription, the particle creation rate is treated as…
A model of a universe without big bang singularity is presented, which displaysanearly inflationary period ending just before a phase transition to a deflationary epoch. The model produces enough heavy particles so as to reheat the universe…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
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…
In quantum systems, entropy production is typically defined as the quantum relative entropy between two states. This definition provides an upper bound for any flux (of particles, energy, entropy, etc.) of bounded observables, which proves…
Certain thermal non-equilibrium situations, outside of the astrophysical realm, suggest that entropy production extrema, instead of entropy extrema, are related to stationary states. In an effort to better understand the evolution of…
Closed, singularity-free, inflationary cosmological models have recently been studied in the context of general relativity. Despite their appeal, these so called emergent models suffer from a number of limitations. These include the fact…
Inflationary models, especially those with plateau-type potentials, are consistent with the cosmological data, but inflation itself does not resolve the initial singularity. This singularity is resolved, for example, by the idea of the…
Entropy might be a not well defined concept if the system can undergo transformations involving stationary nonequilibria. It might be analogous to the heat content (once called ``caloric'') in transformations that are not isochoric (i.e.…
We investigate entanglement generation between the sub- and super-Hubble modes of inflaton fluctuations, in the context of particle production from perturbations during inflation. We consider a large-field inflationary scenario where…
Typically cold inflation with positive vacuum energy density dilutes all matter except the quan- tum fluctuations which are stretched outside the Hubble patch during inflation. However the cyclic- inflation scenario, where the universe…
Warm inflation model with bulk viscous pressure in the context of "intermediate inflation" where the cosmological scale factor expands as $a(t)=a_0\exp(At^f)$, is studied. The characteristics of this model in slow-roll approximation and in…
By using the thermodynamic theory of irreversible processes and Einstein general relativity, a cosmological model is proposed where the early universe is considered as a mixture of a scalar field with a matter field. The scalar field refers…
A problematic feature of low energy scale inflationary models, such as Starobinsky inflation, in a spatially closed universe is the occurrence of a recollapse and a big crunch singularity before inflation can even set in. In a recent work…
The decay of the inflaton into radiation and particles during the slow-roll suggests that these may interact with each other and that the latter may also decay into subproducts before inflation is completed. As a consequence, the fluid is…
We show that particle production during the expansion of bubbles of true vacuum in the sea of false vacuum is possible and calculate the resulting rate. As a result the nucleated bubbles cannot expand due to the transfer of false vacuum…
We study inflation and entropy generation in a recently proposed pre-big-bang model universe produced in a collision of gravitational and dilaton waves. It is shown that enough inflation occurs provided the incoming waves are sufficiently…
A very simplified model of the Universe is considered in order to propose an alternative approach to the irreversible evolution of the Universe at very early times. The entropy generation at the quantum stage can be thought as a consequence…
The purpose of these lectures is to give a pedagogical introduction to inflation and the production of primordial perturbations, as well as a review of some of the latest developments in this domain. After a short introduction, we review…
We derive a formula for the nonequilibrium entropy of a classical stochastic field in terms of correlation functions of this field. The formalism is then applied to define the entropy of gravitational perturbations (both gravitational waves…