A Model for the Big Bounce

TL;DR

This paper proposes a model for the Big Bounce in cosmology using a dense gas of string-holes, linking string theory phases with black hole states and holographic principles.

Contribution

It introduces a novel string-holes gas model to describe the Big Bounce transition, connecting string theory, black holes, and holography in cosmology.

Findings

String-holes evolve to keep temperature and curvature at string scale.

The model saturates the holographic entropy bound during the bounce.

Provides a new perspective on the Hagedorn phase transition.

Abstract

I motivate a proposal for modeling, at weak string coupling, the ``Big Bounce" transition from a growing-curvature phase to standard (FRW) cosmology in terms of a pressure-less dense gas of "string-holes" (SH), string states lying on the correspondence curve between strings and black holes. During this phase SH evolve in such a way that temperature and (string-frame) curvature remain $O(M_s)$ and (a cosmological version of) the holographic entropy bound remains saturated. This reasoning also appears to imply a new interpretation of the Hagedorn phase transition in string theory.