Evolutionary quantum cosmology in a gauge-fixed picture

Journal Article · Sun May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.83.103505· OSTI ID:21502548

Vakili, Babak ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, Islamic Azad University (IAU), Chalous Branch, P. O. Box 46615-397, Chalous (Iran, Islamic Republic of)

We study the classical and quantum models of a flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker space-time, coupled to a perfect fluid, in the context of the consensus and a gauge-fixed Lagrangian frameworks. It is shown that, either in the usual or in the gauge-fixed actions, the evolution of the Universe based on the classical cosmology represents a late time power law expansion, coming from a big-bang singularity in which the scale factor goes to zero for the standard matter, and tending towards a big-rip singularity in which the scale factor diverges for the phantom fluid. We then employ the familiar canonical quantization procedure in the given cosmological setting to find the cosmological wave functions in the corresponding minisuperspace. Using a gauge-fixed (reduced) Lagrangian, we show that it may lead to a Schroedinger equation for the quantum-mechanical description of the model under consideration, the eigenfunctions of which can be used to construct the time dependent wave function of the Universe. We use the resulting wave function in order to investigate the possibility of the avoidance of classical singularities due to quantum effects by means of the many-worlds and ontological interpretation of quantum cosmology.

• OSTI ID: 21502548
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 83, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.83.103505; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
COSMOLOGY
EIGENFUNCTIONS
EVOLUTION
EXPANSION
FLUIDS
IDEAL FLOW
LAGRANGIAN FUNCTION
MATTER
PHANTOMS
QUANTIZATION
QUANTUM MECHANICS
SCHROEDINGER EQUATION
SIMULATION
SINGULARITY
SPACE-TIME
TIME DEPENDENCE
UNIVERSE
WAVE FUNCTIONS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EQUATIONS
FLUID FLOW
FUNCTIONS
INCOMPRESSIBLE FLOW
MECHANICS
MOCKUP
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
STEADY FLOW
STRUCTURAL MODELS
WAVE EQUATIONS