Related papers: Irreversible matter creation processes through a n…

In this work one shows that a generalized non-minimal coupling between geometry and matter is compatible with Starobinsky inflation and leads to a successful process of preheating, a reheating scenario based on the production of massive…

The question of first-cause has troubled philosophers and cosmologists alike. Now that it is apparent that our universe began in a Big Bang explosion, the question of what happened before the Big Bang arises. Inflation seems like a very…

The entropy production rate is a key quantity in non-equilibrium thermodynamics of both classical and quantum processes. No universal theory of entropy production is available to date, which hinders progress towards its full grasping. By…

We perform a phase space analysis of a generalized modified gravity theory with nonminimally coupling between geometry and matter. We apply the dynamical system approach to this generalized model and find that in the cosmological context,…

The Universe is modeled as a binary mixture whose constituents are described by a van der Waals fluid and by a dark energy density. The dark energy density is considered either as the quintessence or as the Chaplygin gas. The irreversible…

One of the most striking examples for the production of particles out of the quantum vacuum due to external conditions is cosmological particle creation, which is caused by the expansion or contraction of the Universe. Already in 1939,…

We propose a novel gravitational mechanism for the non-thermal production of dark matter driven by curvature-induced tachyonic instabilities after inflation. Departing from the commonly studied non-minimal couplings to gravity, our…

I critically examine the notion of ``irreversibility,'' and discuss in what sense it applies to the spontaneous creation of particles in external fields. The investigation reveals that particle creation in very strong fields can only be…

In relativistic quantum mechanics, elementary particles are described by irreducible unitary representations of the Poincare group. The same applies to the center-of-mass kinematics of a multi-particle system that is not subject to external…

We review a conjecture by Ruppeiner that relates the nature of interparticle interactions to the sign of the thermodynamic curvature scalar $R$, paying special attention to the case of zero curvature. We highlight the underappreciated fact…

We discuss the thermodynamics of closed quantum systems driven out of equilibrium by a change in a control parameter and undergoing a unitary process. We compare the work actually done on the system with the one that would be performed…

The cosmology of "Spontaneous Creation of the Universe Ex Nihilo" and the cosmology of the Symmetrical Relativity offer proposals to explain the creation and evolution of the universe. In essence they are still very distinct. However, we…

Curiously, our Universe was born in a low entropy state, with abundant free energy to power stars and life. The form that this free energy takes is usually thought to be gravitational: the Universe is almost perfectly smooth, and so can…

The question of how irreversibility can emerge as a generic phenomena when the underlying mechanical theory is reversible has been a long-standing fundamental problem for both classical and quantum mechanics. We describe a mechanism for the…

Observationally, the universe appears virtually critical. Yet, there is no simple explanation for this state. In this article we advance and explore the premise that the dynamics of the universe always seeks equilibrium conditions.…

Assuming that the matter filling the background geometry in the Early Universe was a free gas and no phase transitions took place, we discuss the thermodynamics of this closed system using classical approaches. We found that essential…

Observations indicate that the universe is effectively flat, but they do not rule out a closed universe. The role of positive curvature is negligible at late times, but can be crucial in the early universe. In particular, positive curvature…

We describe a new class of models of quantum space-time based on energetic causal sets and show that under natural conditions space-time emerges from them. These are causal sets whose causal links are labelled by energy and momentum and…

The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy production in macroscopic systems is non-negative, reaching zero only at thermodynamic equilibrium. As a corollary, this implies that the state trajectory of macroscopic systems is…

We present an explicit correspondence between quantum mechanics and the classical theory of irreversible thermodynamics as developed by Onsager, Prigogine et al. Our correspondence maps irreversible Gaussian Markov processes into the…