Related papers: Entropy and initial conditions in cosmology
Regardless of studies and debates over a century, the statistical origin of the second law of thermodynamics still remains illusive. One essential obstacle is the lack of a proper theoretical formalism for non-equilibrium entropy. Here I…
There exists the "entropy problem" of the early universe, that is, why did the universe begin with an extremely low entropy and how did it evolve into such high entropy at late times? It has been long believed that inflation cannot be the…
I use cosmology examples to illustrate that the second law of thermodynamics is not old and tired, but alive and kicking, continuing to stimulate interesting research on really big puzzles. The question "Why is the entropy so low?" (despite…
We develop new modified cosmological scenarios by applying the first law of thermodynamics at the Universe horizon, utilizing a new entropic functional that generalizes the standard Boltzmann-Gibbs-Shannon entropy. In particular, starting…
We show that it is possible to combine an early phase of String Gas Cosmology which can explain the origin of the observed structures on cosmological scales with a short later period of power law inflation which creates spatial flatness.…
We present a new cosmological model, based on the holographic principle, which shares many of the virtues of inflation. The very earliest semiclassical era of the universe is dominated by a dense gas of black holes, with equation of state…
We propose an approach to explaining why naive large quantum fluctuations are not the right estimate for the cosmological constant. We argue that the universe is in a superposition of many vacua, in such a way that the resulting…
It is widely accepted that temporal asymmetry is largely a cosmological problem; the task of explaining temporal asymmetry reduces in the main to that of explaining an aspect of the condition of the early universe. However, cosmologists who…
We examine variations in the equation of state of the cosmic string portion of the cosmological fluid which lead to perturbations of the background matter density. These fluctuations in the equation of state are due to variations in the…
In these lectures I focus on early universe models which can explain the currently observed structure on large scales. I begin with a survey of inflationary cosmology, the current paradigm for understanding the origin of the universe as we…
We discuss a cyclic cosmology in which the visible universe, or introverse, is all that is accessible to an observer while the extroverse represents the total spacetime originating from the time when the dark energy began to dominate. It is…
The existence of multiple regions of space beyond the observable Universe (within the so-called "multiverse") where the vacuum energy density takes different values, has been postulated as an explanation for the low non-zero value observed…
We consider quantum decoherence and entropy increase in early universe cosmology. We first study decoherence in a discrete bipartite quantum system for which a single qubit gets entangled with an environment and the entropy increase is…
An accelerated universe should naturally have a vacuum energy density determined by its dynamical curvature. The cosmological constant is most likely a temporary description of a dynamical variable that has been drastically evolving from…
In this letter we will revise the steps followed by A. Einstein when he first wrote on cosmology from the point of view of the general theory of relativity. We will argue that his insightful line of thought leading to the introduction of…
After reviewing the cosmological constant problem - why is Lambda not huge? - I outline the two basic approaches that had emerged by the late 1980s, and note that each made a clear prediction. Precision cosmological experiments now indicate…
A dynamical estimate is given for the Boltzmann entropy of the Universe, under the simplifying assumptions provided by Newtonian cosmology. We first model the cosmological fluid as the probability fluid of a quantum-mechanical system. Next,…
Bouncing cosmologies are often proposed as alternatives to standard inflation for the explanation of the homogeneity and flatness of the universe. In such scenarios, the present cosmological expansion is preceded by a contraction phase.…
We show that there are implications on thermodynamics that come from the existence of the initial cosmic singularity. At present time this is more a conceptual change than an observable one. However at very early cosmic times there is a big…
Using the holographic entropy proposal for a closed universe by Verlinde, a bound on equations of state for different stages of the universe is obtained. Further exploring this bound, we find that an inflationary universe naturally emerges…