Thermodynamical aspects of running vacuum models

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the thermal history and entropy evolution in running vacuum models where the cosmological term depends on the Hubble rate, showing they predict correct present-day entropy and a consistent vacuum energy ratio.

Contribution

It provides an analytical study of temperature and entropy evolution in a broad class of running vacuum models with a power series dependence on Hubble rate, independent of initial conditions.

Findings

Primeval radiation entropy density starts from zero and rapidly reaches a maximum.

Late-time radiation entropy matches observed values (~10^{87-88}).

Vacuum energy ratio aligns with quantum field theory estimates (~10^{-123}).

Abstract

The thermal history of a large class of running vacuum models in which the effective cosmological term is described by a truncated power series of the Hubble rate, whose dominant term is $\Lambda (H) \propto H^{n+2}$, is discussed in detail. Specifically, by assuming that the ultra-relativistic particles produced by the vacuum decay emerge into space-time in such a way that its energy density $\rho_r \propto T^{4}$, the temperature evolution law and the increasing entropy function are analytically calculated. For the whole class of vacuum models explored here we findthat the primeval value of the comoving radiation entropy density (associated to effectively massless particles) starts from zero and evolves extremely fast until reaching a maximum near the end of the vacuum decay phase, where it saturates. The late time conservation of the radiation entropy during the adiabatic FRW phase also guarantees that the whole class of running vacuum models predicts thesame correct value of the present day entropy, $S_{0} \sim 10^{87-88}$ (in natural units), independently of the initial conditions. In addition, by assuming Gibbons-Hawking temperature as an initial condition, we find that the ratio between the late time and primordial vacuum energy densities is in agreement with naive estimates from quantum field theory, namely, $\rho_{\Lambda 0}/\rho_{\Lambda I} \sim10^{-123}$. Such results are independent on the power $n$ and suggests that the observed Universe may evolve smoothly between two extreme, unstable, nonsingular de Sitter phases.