Cosmology or catastrophe? A non-minimally coupled scalar in an inhomogeneous universe

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/30/19/195013MaRDI QIDQ2861855zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Paweł Caputa, Joseph Olson, Bret Underwood, Sheikh Shajidul Haque

Publication date 11 November 2013

Published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0012

zbMATH Keywords

universenon-minimally coupled scalar fieldhomogeneous and isotropic cosmology

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Space-time singularities, cosmic censorship, etc. (83C75) Relativistic cosmology (83F05) Catastrophe theory (58K35)

Abstract: A non-minimally coupled scalar field can have, in principle, a negative effective Planck mass squared which depends on the scalar field. Surprisingly, an isotropic and homogeneous cosmological universe with a non-minimally coupled scalar field is perfectly smooth as the rolling scalar field causes the effective Planck mass to change sign and pass through zero. However, we show that any small deviations from homogeneity diverge as the effective Planck mass vanishes, with catastrophic consequences for the cosmology. The physical origin of the divergence is due to the presence of non-zero scalar anisotropic stress from the non-minimally coupled scalar field. Thus, while the homogeneous and isotropic cosmology appears surprisingly sensible when the effective Planck mass vanishes, inhomogeneities tell a different story.

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Cited in

(5)

• Journeys through antigravity?
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• Bouncing cosmological isotropic solutions in scalar-tensor gravity
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