Particle creation in a tunneling universe. I

Jooyoo Hong, Alexander Vilenkin, and Serge Winitzki
Phys. Rev. D 68, 023520 – Published 30 July 2003
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Abstract

An expanding closed universe filled with radiation can either recollapse or tunnel to the regime of unbounded expansion, if the cosmological constant is nonzero. We reexamine the question of particle creation during tunneling, with the purpose of resolving a long-standing controversy. Using a perturbative superspace model with a conformally coupled massless scalar field, which is known to give no particle production, we explicitly show that the breakdown of the semiclassical approximation and the “catastrophic particle production” claimed earlier in the literature are due to an inappropriate choice of the initial quantum state prior to the tunneling.

  • Received 11 October 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.68.023520

©2003 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Jooyoo Hong

  • Institute of Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA
  • Department of Physics, Hanyang University at Ansan, Ansan, Kyunggi-do 425-791, Korea

Alexander Vilenkin and Serge Winitzki

  • Institute of Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA

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Vol. 68, Iss. 2 — 15 July 2003

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