No Arabic abstract
We test a cosmological model which the only component is a pressureless fluid with a constant bulk viscosity as an explanation for the present accelerated expansion of the universe. We classify all the possible scenarios for the universe predicted by the model according to their past, present and future evolution and we test its viability performing a Bayesian statistical analysis using the SCP ``Union data set (307 SNe Ia), imposing the second law of thermodynamics on the dimensionless constant bulk viscous coefficient zeta and comparing the predicted age of the universe by the model with the constraints coming from the oldest globular clusters. The best estimated values found for zeta and the Hubble constant Ho are: zeta=1.922 pm 0.089 and Ho=69.62 pm 0.59 km/s/Mpc with a chi^2=314. The age of the universe is found to be 14.95 pm 0.42 Gyr. We see that the estimated value of Ho as well as of chi^2 are very similar to those obtained from LCDM model using the same SNe Ia data set. The estimated age of the universe is in agreement with the constraints coming from the oldest globular clusters. Moreover, the estimated value of zeta is positive in agreement with the second law of thermodynamics (SLT). On the other hand, we perform different forms of marginalization over the parameter Ho in order to study the sensibility of the results to the way how Ho is marginalized. We found that it is almost negligible the dependence between the best estimated values of the free parameters of this model and the way how Ho is marginalized in the present work. Therefore, this simple model might be a viable candidate to explain the present acceleration in the expansion of the universe.
We explore the viability of a bulk viscous matter-dominated Universe to explain the present accelerated expansion of the Universe. The model is composed by a pressureless fluid with bulk viscosity of the form zeta = zeta_0 + zeta_1 * H where zeta_0 and zeta_1 are constants and H is the Hubble parameter. The pressureless fluid characterizes both the baryon and dark matter components. We study the behavior of the Universe according to this model analyzing the scale factor as well as some curvature scalars and the matter density. On the other hand, we compute the best estimated values of zeta_0 and zeta_1 using the type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) probe. We find that from all the possible scenarios for the Universe, the preferred one by the best estimated values of (zeta_0, zeta_1) is that of an expanding Universe beginning with a Big- Bang, followed by a decelerated expansion at early times, and with a smooth transition in recent times to an accelerated expansion epoch that is going to continue forever. The predicted age of the Universe is a little smaller than the mean value of the observational constraint coming from the oldest globular clusters but it is still inside of the confidence interval of this constraint. A drawback of the model is the violation of the local second law of thermodynamics in redshifts z >= 1. However, when we assume zeta_1 = 0, the simple model zeta = zeta_0 evaluated at the best estimated value for zeta_0 satisfies the local second law of thermodynamics, the age of the Universe is in perfect agreement with the constraint of globular clusters, and it also has a Big-Bang, followed by a decelerated expansion with the smooth transition to an accelerated expansion epoch in late times, that is going to continue forever.
We present and constrain a cosmological model where the only component is a pressureless fluid with bulk viscosity as an explanation for the present accelerated expansion of the universe. We study the particular model of a bulk viscosity coefficient proportional to the Hubble parameter. The model is constrained using the SNe Ia Gold 2006 sample, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) shift parameter R, the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) peak A and the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLT). It was found that this model is in agreement with the SLT using only the SNe Ia test. However when the model is constrained using the three cosmological tests together (SNe+CMB+BAO) we found: 1.- The model violates the SLT, 2.- It predicts a value of H_0 approx 53 km sec^{-1} Mpc^{-1} for the Hubble constant, and 3.- We obtain a bad fit to data with a chi^2_{min} approx 532. These results indicate that this model is viable just if the bulk viscosity is triggered in recent times.
We explore the cosmological implications at effective level of matter creation effects in a dissipative fluid for a FLRW geometry; we also perform a statistical analysis for this kind of model. By considering an inhomogeneous Ansatz for the particle production rate we obtain that for created matter of dark matter type we can have a quintessence scenario or a future singularity known as little rip; in dependence of the value of a constant parameter, $eta$, which characterizes the matter production effects. The dimensionless age of this kind of Universe is computed, showing that this number is greater than the standard cosmology value, this is typical of universes with presence of dark energy. The inclusion of baryonic matter is studied. By implementing the construction of the particle production rate for a dissipative fluid by considering two approaches for the expression of the bulk viscous pressure; we find that in Eckart model we have a big rip singularity leading to a catastrophic matter production and in the truncated version of the Israel-Stewart model such rate remains bounded leading to a quintessence scenario. For a non adiabatic dissipative fluid, we obtain a positive temperature and the cosmic expansion obeys the second law of thermodynamics.
We show that the cosmic bulk viscosity estimated in our previous works is sufficient to bridge the $H_0$ value inferred from observations of the early universe with the value inferred from the local (late) universe.
We consider here a spherically symmetric but inhomogeneous universe filled with a massless scalar field. The model obeys two constraints. The first one is that the gradient of the scalar field is timelike everywhere. The second constraint is that the radial coordinate basis vector is a unit vector field in the comoving coordinate system. We find that the resultant dynamical solutions compose a one-parameter family of self-similar models which is known as the Roberts solution. The solutions are divided into three classes. The first class consists of solutions with only one spacelike singularity in the synchronous-comoving chart. The second class consists of solutions with two singularities which are null and spacelike, respectively. The third class consists of solutions with two spacelike singularities which correspond to the big bang and big crunch, respectively. We see that, in the first case, a comoving volume exponentially expands as in an inflationary period; the fluid elements are accelerated outwards form the symmetry center, even though the strong energy condition is satisfied. This behavior is very different from that observed in the homogeneous and isotropic universe in which the fluid elements would move outwards with deceleration, if the strong energy conditions are satisfied. We are thus able to achieve the accelerated expansion of the universe for the models considered here, without a need to violate the energy conditions. The cosmological features of the models are examined in some detail.