Inflationary and dark energy regimes in 2+1 dimensions

TL;DR

This paper explores 3D cosmological models to simulate inflationary and dark energy-dominated eras, analyzing scalar field interactions and alternative equations of state through numerical methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel numerical analysis of 3D cosmological models with scalar fields and exotic equations of state, extending prior work to include inflation and dark energy regimes.

Findings

Demonstrated evolution of scale factor and acceleration in 3D models

Simulated matter-dominated to dark energy transition

Constructed inflationary models using van der Waals equation

Abstract

In this work we investigate the behavior of three-dimensional (3D) cosmological models. The simulation of inflationary and dark-energy-dominated eras are among the possible results in these 3D formulations; taking as starting point the results obtained by Cornish and Frankel. Motivated by those results, we investigate, first, the inflationary case where we consider a two-constituent cosmological fluid: the scalar field represents the hypothetical inflaton which is in gravitational interaction with a matter/radiation contribution. For the description of an old universe, it is possible to simulate its evolution starting with a matter dominated universe that faces a decelerated/accelerated transition due to the presence of the additional constituent (simulated by the scalar field or ruled by an exotic equation of state) that plays the role of dark energy. We obtain, through numerical analysis, the evolution in time of the scale factor, the acceleration, the energy densities, and the hydrostatic pressure of the constituents. The alternative scalar cosmology proposed by Cornish and Frankel is also under investigation in this work. In this case an inflationary model can be constructed when another non-polytropic equation of state (the van der Waals equation) is used to simulate the behavior of an early 3D universe.