Instability of an emergent universe

Abstract

Oscillating solutions to the effective equations of Loop Quantum Cosmology have been suggested for the role of an `eternal seed', providing a possible starting point for the emergent universe scenario. We investigate the stability of a particular model, sourced by a homogeneous massless scalar field and a negative cosmological constant, with respect to small perturbations and to quantum collapse. We find that the model has perturbatively stable and unstable solutions, with both types of solutions occupying significant regions of the parameter space. All solutions are unstable with respect to collapse by quantum tunneling to zero size. We discuss the possibility that the state resulting from the collapse is non-singular, so it may tunnel back to the oscillating regime. We argue that the universe is then likely to evolve to states of very large size with large particle occupation numbers.

18 pages, 3 figures; v2 reference added

References in corpus (4)

• Quantum Nature of the Big Bang
• Path Integrals and the WKB approximation in Loop Quantum Cosmology
• Exact solutions for Big Bounce in loop quantum cosmology
• Dynamical eigenfunctions and critical density in loop quantum cosmology

Cited by in corpus (8)

• A $\Lambda$CDM bounce scenario
• Emergent Cosmology, Inflation and Dark Energy
• Past incompleteness of a bouncing multiverse
• Varying constants quantum cosmology
• Exploring eternal stability with the simple harmonic universe
• Stablizing oscillating universes against quantum decay
• Tunneling decay rate in quantum cosmology
• Quantum gravitational non-singular tunneling wavefunction proposal