Inflationary cosmology with two-component fluid and thermodynamics

TL;DR

This paper proposes a cosmological model where a decaying cosmological constant causes inflation and matter creation, smoothly transitioning to standard cosmological eras while maintaining thermodynamic consistency and matching quantum field theory predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent inflationary cosmology with quantum-created radiation and matter from a decaying cosmological constant, extending previous models and aligning with quantum field theory.

Findings

The model achieves a smooth transition from inflation to radiation and dust eras.

Created radiation and matter obey thermodynamic laws with realistic entropy production.

The model aligns with quantum field theory approaches to particle creation in curved spacetime.

Abstract

We present a simple and self-consistent cosmology with a phenomenological model of quantum creation of radiation and matter due to decay of the cosmological constant $\Lambda$. The decay drives a non-isentropic inflationary epoch, which exits smoothly to the radiation-dominated era, without reheating, and then evolves to the dust era. The initial vacuum for radiation and matter is a regular Minkowski vacuum. The created radiation and matter obeys standard thermodynamic laws, and the total entropy produced is consistent with the accepted value. This paper is an extension of the model with the decaying cosmological constant considered previously. We compare our model with the quantum field theory approach to creation of particles in curved space.