Quantum fate of singularities in a dark-energy dominated universe

Journal Article · Mon Jun 15 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.79.124035· OSTI ID:21300994

Bouhmadi-Lopez, Mariam ^[1]; Kiefer, Claus; Sandhoefer, Barbara ^[2]; Moniz, Paulo Vargas ^[3]

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1. Centro Multidisciplinar de Astrofisica--CENTRA, Departamento de Fisica, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Avenida Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisboa (Portugal)
2. Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Universitaet zu Koeln, Zuelpicher Strasse 77, 50937 Koeln (Germany)
3. Departamento de Fisica, Universidade da Beira Interior, Rua Marques d'Avila e Bolama, 6200 Covilha (Portugal)

Classical models for dark energy can exhibit a variety of singularities, many of which occur for scale factors much bigger than the Planck length. We address here the issue of whether some of these singularities, the big freeze and the big demarrage, can be avoided in quantum cosmology. We use the framework of quantum geometrodynamics. We restrict our attention to a class of models whose matter content can be described by a generalized Chaplygin gas and be represented by a scalar field with an appropriate potential. Employing the DeWitt criterion that the wave function be zero at the classical singularity, we show that a class of solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation fulfilling this condition can be found. These solutions thus avoid the classical singularity. We discuss the reasons for the remaining ambiguity in fixing the solution.

• OSTI ID: 21300994
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 79; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COSMOLOGY
EQUATIONS
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
QUANTUM MECHANICS
SCALAR FIELDS
SINGULARITY
UNIVERSE
WAVE FUNCTIONS