Global Dynamical Structure of Einstein$-$Scalar Cosmological Systems

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive dynamical systems analysis of flat FLRW cosmologies with scalar fields, revealing late-time behaviors, attractors, and stability properties independent of specific models.

Contribution

It introduces a global dynamical framework for Einstein-scalar cosmologies, identifying attractors, invariant manifolds, and stability features under broad potential assumptions.

Findings

Existence of a compact global attractor governing late-time dynamics.

Convergence toward scalar field dominated invariant manifolds.

Reduction to one or two degrees of freedom in late-time behavior.

Abstract

In this work, a global dynamical analysis of spatially flat FLRW cosmologies driven by a canonical scalar field minimally coupled to gravity is presented. Under suitable regularity and asymptotic assumptions on the scalar field potential, it is shown that the Einstein$-$scalar evolution admits no forward trajectory along which the potential steepness becomes asymptotically unbounded. This establishes forward boundedness of the scalar sector and yields the existence of a compact absorbing set for the induced cosmological flow. Using techniques from invariant manifold theory and dissipative dynamical systems, the evolution is shown to admit a compact global attractor governing the late time dynamics of all physically admissible solutions. The asymptotic behavior is further characterized by convergence toward a scalar field dominated invariant manifold, leading to a reduction in effective dynamical dimensionality. In particular, the late time dynamics is governed by at most two independent degrees of freedom, with further reduction to one dimension for asymptotically exponential potentials. The resulting asymptotic structure is shown to be normally hyperbolic and structurally stable under smooth perturbations of the scalar field potential. A topological classification of the asymptotic dynamics is obtained using the Conley index, identifying universality classes corresponding to one and two dimensional invariant sets. These results provide a global characterization of late time scalar field cosmologies and establish a model independent dynamical mechanism for asymptotic trapping in Einstein$-$scalar systems.