Related papers: Big bang as a topological quantum phase transition
We evaluate the physical viability and logical strength of an array of putative criteria for big bang singularity resolution in quantum cosmology. Based on this analysis, we propose a mutually consistent set of constitutive conditions,…
The dynamics of an inhomogeneous universe is studied with the methods of Loop Quantum Cosmology as an example of the quantization of vacuum cosmological spacetimes containing gravitational waves (Gowdy spacetimes). The analysis performed at…
We propose a mechanism to have a smooth transition from a pre-Big Bang phase to a standard cosmological phase. Such transition is driven by gravitational production of heavy massive string states that backreact on the geometry to stop the…
We propose that at the beginning of the universe gravity existed in a limbo either because it was switched off or because it was only conformally coupled to all particles. This picture can be reverse-engineered from the requirement that the…
In this paper we discuss the initial state of the universe at the Big Bang. By using ideas of Freedman in the proof of the disk embedding theorem for 4-manifolds, we describe the corresponding spacetime as gravitational instanton. The…
Lattice regularization of the theory of gravity provides a new possibility for study of the Big Bang problem. In the 4D lattice theories of gravity, the existence of a high-temperature phase is proved, which is characterized by the folding…
We consider quantum field theory on a spacetime representing the Big Crunch/Big Bang transition postulated in the ekpyrotic or cyclic cosmologies. We show via several independent methods that an essentially unique matching rule holds…
The present paper seeks to construct a quantum theory of the cosmological constant in which its presently observed very small value emerges naturally.
We present a rich class of exact solutions which contains radiation-dominated and matter-dominated models for the early and late universe. They include a variable cosmological ``constant'' which is derived from a higher dimension and…
We propose a gravitational model with a Brans-Dicke-type scalar field having, in the would-be action, a "wrong-sign" kinetic term and a quartic interaction term. In a cosmological context, we obtain, depending on the boundary conditions,…
It is argued that the "Big Bang" initiating the creation of our Universe may be a consequence of a first-order phase transition induced by interaction of a fundamental non-linear scalar field with gravitational field. The Lagrangian…
Quantum phase transitions encompass a variety of phenomena that occur in quantum systems exhibiting several possible symmetries. Traditionally, these transitions are explored by continuously varying a control parameter that connects two…
A new dynamical paradigm merging quantum dynamics with cosmology is discussed. Time evolution involves a genuine passage of time, which distinguishes the formalism from those where dynamics in space is equivalent to statics in space-time.…
A diverse set of observations now compellingly suggest that Universe possesses a nonzero cosmological constant. In the context of quantum-field theory a cosmological constant corresponds to the energy density of the vacuum, and the wanted…
A Quintom universe with an equation-of-state crossing the cosmological constant boundary can provide a bouncing solution dubbed the Quintom Bounce and thus resolve the Big Bang singularity. In this paper, we investigate the cosmological…
We discuss phenomenology of quantum vacuum. Phenomenology of macroscopic systems has three sources: thermodynamics, topology and symmetry. Thermodynamics of the self-sustained vacuum allows us to treat the problems related to the vacuum…
In quantum theory the vacuum is defined as a state of minimum energy that is devoid of particles but still not completely empty. It is perhaps more surprising that its definition depends on the geometry of the system and on the trajectory…
We study a quantum phase transition between a phase which is topologically ordered and one which is not. We focus on a spin model, an extension of the toric code, for which we obtain the exact ground state for all values of the coupling…
A new microcanonical equilibrium state is introduced for quantum systems with finite-dimensional state spaces. Equilibrium is characterised by a uniform distribution on a level surface of the expectation value of the Hamiltonian. The…
At very early times, the universe was not in a vacuum state. Under the assumtion that the deviation from equillibrium was large, in particular that it is higher than the scale of inflation, we analyse the conditions for local transitions…