No Arabic abstract
Quantum fields in compact stars can be amplified due to a semiclassical instability. This generic feature of scalar fields coupled to curvature may affect the birth and the equilibrium structure of relativistic stars. We point out that the semiclassical instability has a classical counterpart, which occurs exactly in the same region of the parameter space. For negative values of the coupling parameter the instability is equivalent to the well-known spontaneous scalarization effect: the plausible end-state of the instability is a static, asymptotically flat equilibrium configuration with nonzero expectation value for the quantum fields, which is compatible with experiments in the weak-field regime and energetically favored over stellar solutions in general relativity. For positive values of the coupling parameter the new configurations are energetically disfavored, and the end-point of the instability remains an open and interesting issue. The vacuum instability may provide a natural mechanism to produce spontaneous scalarization, leading to new experimental opportunities to probe the nature of vacuum energy via astrophysical observations of compact stars.
We study the cosmology with the running dark energy. The parametrization of dark energy with the respect to the redshift is derived from the first principles of quantum mechanics. Energy density of dark energy is obtained from the quantum process of transition from the false vacuum state to the true vacuum state. This is the class of the extended interacting $Lambda$CDM models. We consider the energy density of dark energy parametrization $rho_text{de}(t)$, which follows from the Breit-Wigner energy distribution function which is used to model the quantum unstable systems. The idea that properties of the process of the quantum mechanical decay of unstable states can help to understand the properties of the observed universe was formulated by Krauss and Dent and this idea was used in our considerations. In the cosmological model with the mentioned parametrization there is an energy transfer between the dark matter and dark energy. In such a evolutional scenario the universe is starting from the false vacuum state and going to the true vacuum state of the present day universe. We find that the intermediate regime during the passage from false to true vacuum states takes place. The intensity of the analyzed process is measured by a parameter $alpha$. For the small value of $alpha$ ($0<alpha <0.4$) this intermediate (quantum) regime is characterized by an oscillatory behavior of the density of dark energy while the for $alpha > 0.4$ the density of the dark energy simply jumps down. In both cases (independent from the parameter $alpha$) the today value of density of dark energy is reached at the value of $0.7$. We estimate the cosmological parameters for this model with visible and dark matter. This model becomes in good agreement with the astronomical data and is practically indistinguishable from $Lambda$CDM model.
It is widely believed that as one of the candidates for dark energy, the cosmological constant should relate directly with the quantum vacuum. Despite decades of theoretical effects, however, there is still no quantitative interpretation of the observed cosmological constant. In this work, we consider the quantum state of the whole universe including the quantum vacuum. Everetts relative-state formulation, vacuum quantum fluctuations and the validity of Einsteins field equation at macroscopic scales imply that our universe wave function might be a superposition of states with different cosmological constants. In the density matrix formulation of this quantum universe, the quasi-thermal equilibrium state is described by a specific cosmological constant with the maximum probability. Without any fitting parameter, the ratio between the vacuum energy density due to the cosmological constant (dark energy) and the critical density of the universe is 68.85% based on simple equations in our theoretic model, which agrees very well with the best current astronomical observations of 68.5%.
We study particle production and the corresponding entropy increase in the context of cosmology with dynamical vacuum. We focus on the particular form that has been called running vacuum model (RVM), which is known to furnish a successful description of the overall current observations at a competitive level with the concordance $Lambda$CDM model. It also provides an elegant global explanation of the cosmic history from a non-singular initial state in the very early universe up to our days and further into the final de Sitter era. The model has no horizon problem and provides an alternative explanation for the early inflation and its graceful exit, as well as a powerful mechanism for generating the large entropy of the current universe. The energy-momentum tensor of matter is generally non-conserved in such context owing to particle creation or annihilation. We analyze general thermodynamical aspects of particle and entropy production in the RVM. We first study the entropy of particles in the comoving volume during the early universe and late universe. Then, in order to obtain a more physical interpretation, we pay attention to the entropy contribution from the cosmological apparent horizon, its interior and its surface. On combining the inner volume entropy with the entropy on the horizon, we elucidate with detailed calculations whether the evolution of the entropy of the RVM universe satisfies the Generalized Second Law of Thermodynamics. We find it is so and we prove that the essential reason for it is the existence of a positive cosmological constant.
We investigate the running vacuum model (RVM) in the framework of scalar field theory.This dynamical vacuum model provides an elegant global explanation of the cosmic history, namely the universe starts from a non-singular initial de Sitter vacuum stage, it passes smoothly from an early inflationary era to a radiation epoch (graceful exit) and finally it enters the dark matter and dark energy (DE) dominated epochs, where it can explain the large entropy problem and predicts a mild dynamical evolution of the DE. Within this phenomenologically appealing context, we formulate an effective {it classical} scalar field description of the RVM through a field $phi$, called the {it vacuumon}, which turns out to be very helpful for an understanding and practical implementation of the physical mechanisms of the running vacuum during both the early universe and the late time cosmic acceleration. In the early universe the potential for the vacuumon may be mapped to a potential that behaves similarly to that of the scalaron field of Starobinsky-type inflation at the {it classical} level, whilst in the late universe it provides an effective scalar field description of DE. The two representations, however, are not physically equivalent since the mechanisms of inflation are entirely different. Moreover, unlike the scalaron, vacuumon is treated as a classical background field, and not a fully fledged quantum field, hence cosmological perturbations will be different between the two pictures of inflation.
We investigate the gravitational wave spectrum resulted from the cosmological first-order phase transition. We compare two models; one is a scalar field model without gravitation, while the other is a scalar field model with gravitation. Based on the sensitivity curves of the LISA space-based interferometer on the stochastic gravitational-wave background, we compare the difference between the gravitational wave spectra of the former and the latter cases resulted from the bubble collision process. Especially, we calculated the speed of the bubble wall before collision for the two models numerically. We show that the difference between the amplitudes of those spectra can clearly distinguish between the two models. We expect that the LISA with Signal to Noise Ratio =10 could observe the spectrum as the fast first-order phase transition.