Decoherence can relax cosmic acceleration

Tommi Markkanen

doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2016/11/026

Decoherence can relax cosmic acceleration

Tommi Markkanen^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Physics

King's College London

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)

160 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In this work we investigate the semi-classical backreaction for a quantised con-formal scalar field and classical vacuum energy. In contrast to the usual approximation of a closed system, our analysis includes an environmental sector such that a quantum-to-classical transition can take place. We show that when the system decoheres into a mixed state with particle number as the classical observable de Sitter space is destabilized, which is observable as a gradually decreasing Hubble rate. In particular we show that at late times this mechanism can drive the curvature of the Universe to zero and has an interpretation as the decay of the vacuum energy demonstrating that quantum effects can be relevant for the fate of the Universe.

Original language	English
Article number	26
Number of pages	22
Journal	Journal Of Cosmology And Astroparticle Physics
Volume	2016
Issue number	11
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2016/11/026
Publication status	Published - 11 Nov 2016

Keywords

Dark energy theory
Quantum field theory on curved space

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10.1088/1475-7516/2016/11/026Licence: CC BY

Decoherence can relax cosmic_MARKKANEN_Accepted10Nov2016_GOLD VoRFinal published version, 431 KBLicence: CC BY

http://arxiv.org/abs/1609.01738

Cite this

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AB - In this work we investigate the semi-classical backreaction for a quantised con-formal scalar field and classical vacuum energy. In contrast to the usual approximation of a closed system, our analysis includes an environmental sector such that a quantum-to-classical transition can take place. We show that when the system decoheres into a mixed state with particle number as the classical observable de Sitter space is destabilized, which is observable as a gradually decreasing Hubble rate. In particular we show that at late times this mechanism can drive the curvature of the Universe to zero and has an interpretation as the decay of the vacuum energy demonstrating that quantum effects can be relevant for the fate of the Universe.

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Decoherence can relax cosmic acceleration

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DARKHORIZONS: Dark Matter and the Early Universe in the LHC Era

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Decoherence can relax cosmic acceleration

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DARKHORIZONS: Dark Matter and the Early Universe in the LHC Era

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