Quantum instability of an oscillating universe

Abstract

An oscillating, compact Friedmann universe with a massive conformally coupled scalar field is studied in the framework of quantum cosmology. The scalar field is treated as a perturbation and we look for solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation describing stable stationary states of the model. We assume that the previous sources of quantum instability that have been discussed in the literature (particle production, and tunnelling to zero size) are absent. We then show, under rather general assumptions, that a further source of quantum instability prevents the existence of stationary states with localized wave function in the direction of the scalar-field modes.

23 pages, no figures; paragraph added in the Conclusions; two new references; to appear in PRD

References in corpus (4)

• Quantum Supersymmetric Bianchi IX Cosmology
• Instability of an emergent universe
• Exploring eternal stability with the simple harmonic universe
• The Interpretation of Quantum Cosmology and the Problem of Time

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• Quantum cosmology, eternal inflation, and swampland conjectures
• Dissipative Emergence of Inflation from Quasi-Cyclic Universe