Search Results (48)

This work presents a semi-classical, quantum-corrected model of gravitational collapse for a charged, spherically symmetric dust cloud, extending the classical Oppenheimer–Snyder (OS) framework through loop quantum gravity effects. Our goal is to study phenomenological quantum modifications to geometry, without necessarily embedding them within full loop quantum gravity (LQG). Building upon the quantum Oppenheimer–Snyder (qOS) model, which replaces the classical singularity with a nonsingular bounce via a modified Friedmann equation, we introduce electric and magnetic charges concentrated on a massive thin shell at the boundary of the dust ball. The resulting exterior spacetime generalizes the Schwarzschild solution to a charged, regular black hole geometry akin to a quantum-corrected Reissner–Nordström metric. The Israel junction conditions are applied to match the interior APS (Ashtekar–Pawlowski–Singh) cosmological solution to the charged exterior, yielding constraints on the shell’s mass, pressure, and energy. Stability conditions are derived, including a minimum radius preventing full collapse and ensuring positivity of energy density. This study also examines the geodesic structure around the black hole, focusing on null circular orbits and effective potentials, with implications for the observational signatures of such quantum-corrected compact objects. Full article

We analyze the anisotropic Bianchi models, and in particular the Bianchi Type IX known as the Mixmaster universe, where the Misner anisotropic variables obey Deformed Commutation Relations inspired by Quantum Gravity theories. We consider three different deformations, two of which have been able to remove the initial singularity similarly to Loop Quantum Cosmology when implemented in the single-volume variable. Here, the two-dimensional algebras naturally implement a form of Non-Commutativity between the space variables that affects the dynamics of the anisotropies. In particular, we implement the modifications in their classical limit, where the Deformed Commutators become Deformed Poisson Brackets. We derive the modified Belinskii–Khalatnikov–Lifshitz map in all the three cases, and we study the fate of the chaotic behavior that the model classically presents. Depending on the sign of the deformation, the dynamics will either settle into oscillations between two almost-constant angles, or stop reflecting after a finite number of iterations and reach the singularity as one last simple Kasner solution. In either case, chaos is removed. Full article

We present the Quantum Memory Matrix (QMM) hypothesis, which addresses the longstanding Black Hole Information Paradox rooted in the apparent conflict between Quantum Mechanics (QM) and General Relativity (GR). This paradox raises the question of how information is preserved during black hole formation and evaporation, given that Hawking radiation appears to result in information loss, challenging unitarity in quantum mechanics. The QMM hypothesis proposes that space–time itself acts as a dynamic quantum information reservoir, with quantum imprints encoding information about quantum states and interactions directly into the fabric of space–time at the Planck scale. By defining a quantized model of space–time and mechanisms for information encoding and retrieval, QMM aims to conserve information in a manner consistent with unitarity during black hole processes. We develop a mathematical framework that includes space–time quantization, definitions of quantum imprints, and interactions that modify quantum state evolution within this structure. Explicit expressions for the interaction Hamiltonians are provided, demonstrating unitarity preservation in the combined system of quantum fields and the QMM. This hypothesis is compared with existing theories, including the holographic principle, black hole complementarity, and loop quantum gravity, noting its distinctions and examining its limitations. Finally, we discuss observable implications of QMM, suggesting pathways for experimental evaluation, such as potential deviations from thermality in Hawking radiation and their effects on gravitational wave signals. The QMM hypothesis aims to provide a pathway towards resolving the Black Hole Information Paradox while contributing to broader discussions in quantum gravity and cosmology. Full article

In this paper, we systematically study the evolution of the Universe within the framework of a modified loop quantum cosmological model (mLQC-I) using various inflationary potentials, including chaotic, Starobinsky, generalized Starobinsky, polynomials of the first and second kinds, generalized T-models and natural inflation. In all these models, the big bang singularity is replaced by a quantum bounce, and the evolution of the Universe, both before and after the bounce, is universal and weakly dependent on the inflationary potentials, as long as the evolution is dominated by the kinetic energy of the inflaton at the bounce. In particular, the pre-bounce evolution can be universally divided into three different phases: pre-bouncing, pre-transition, and pre-de Sitter. The pre-bouncing phase occurs immediately before the quantum bounce, during which the evolution of the Universe is dominated by the kinetic energy of the inflaton. Thus, the equation of state of the inflaton is about one, $w\left(\varphi \right)\simeq 1$. Soon, the inflation potential takes over, so $w\left(\varphi \right)$ rapidly falls from one to negative one. This pre-transition phase is very short and quickly turns into the pre-de Sitter phase, whereby the effective cosmological constant of Planck size takes over and dominates the rest of the contracting phase. Throughout the entire pre-bounce regime, the evolution of both the expansion factor and the inflaton can be approximated by universal analytical solutions, independent of the specific inflation potentials. Full article

We investigate the implications of different quantization approaches in Loop Quantum Cosmology for the primordial power spectrum of tensor modes. Specifically, we consider the hybrid and dressed metric approaches to derive the effective mass that governs the evolution of the tensor modes. Our study comprehensively examines the two resulting effective masses and how to estimate them in order to obtain approximated analytic solutions to the tensor perturbation equations. Since Loop Quantum Cosmology incorporates preinflationary effects in the dynamics of the perturbations, we do not have at our disposal a standard choice of privileged vacuum, like the Bunch–Davies state in quasi-de Sitter inflation. We then select the vacuum state by a recently proposed criterion which removes unwanted oscillations in the power spectrum and guarantees an asymptotic diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in the ultraviolet. This vacuum is usually called the NO-AHD (from the initials of Non-Oscillating with Asymptotic Hamiltonian Diagonalization) vacuum. Consequently, we compute the power spectrum by using our analytic approximations and by introducing a suitable numerical procedure, adopting in both cases an NO-AHD vacuum. With this information, we compare the different spectra obtained from the hybrid and the dressed metric approaches, as well as from the analytic and numerical procedures. In particular, this proves the remarkable accuracy of our approximations. Full article

We construct and examine a holonomy-corrected chiral fields model of cosmological relevance. Specifically, we holonomize the Hamiltonian corresponding to a quintom field scenario with additional kinetic interaction (governed by the constant chiral metric, $m_{ab}$) on a flat FLRW background and contrast the resulting model with the corresponding purely classical system. In particular, it is shown that the single LQC bouncing stage is ensured to be realized, provided the full chiral kinetic energy function does not change sign during evolution. (As preparation, a particularly simple k-essence field is examined within the effective LQC scheme; some exact solutions are obtained in the process.) Additionally, under the said assumption, it is established that the landmark bouncing mechanism of standard (effective) LQC is still guaranteed to be featured even when taking any finite number of fields ${\varphi }^1,\dots {\varphi }^m$ and $m_{ab}$ to be dependent on such fields (the particular zero-potential case corresponding to a family of simple purely kinetic k-essence multi-field cosmology models). Full article

In this paper, we study analytical approximate solutions for second-order homogeneous differential equations with the existence of only two turning points (but without poles) by using the uniform asymptotic approximation (UAA) method. To be more concrete, we consider the Pöschl–Teller (PT) potential, for which analytical solutions are known. Depending on the values of the parameters involved in the PT potential, we find that the upper bounds of the errors of the approximate solutions in general are ≲0.15∼10% for the first-order approximation of the UAA method. The approximations can be easily extended to high orders, for which the errors are expected to be much smaller. Such obtained analytical solutions can be used to study cosmological perturbations in the framework of quantum cosmology as well as quasi-normal modes of black holes. Full article

In recent decades, there has been growing interest in the quantization of black holes using techniques developed in loop quantum cosmology. Due to the quantum geometry effect, the resulting quantum-corrected black hole provides non-singular models. The quantization scheme can be roughly divided into four types: (1) the ${\mu }_0$ scheme, (2) the $\overline{\mu }$ scheme, (3) the generalized ${\mu }_0$ scheme, and (4) the quantum collapsing model. This paper provides an introduction of the loop quantum black hole model, a summary of the progress made in this field, as well as the quantum effective dynamics and physical applications of these models. Full article

DeWitt’s suggestion that the wave function of the universe should vanish at the classical Big Bang singularity is considered here within the framework of one-loop quantum cosmology. For pure gravity at one loop about a flat four-dimensional background bounded by a 3-sphere, three choices of boundary conditions are considered: vanishing of the linearized magnetic curvature when only transverse-traceless gravitational modes are quantized; a one-parameter family of mixed boundary conditions for gravitational and ghost modes; and diffeomorphism-invariant boundary conditions for metric perturbations and ghost modes. A positive $\zeta \left(0\right)$ value in these cases ensures that, when the three-sphere boundary approaches zero, the resulting one-loop wave function approaches zero. This property may be interpreted by saying that, in the limit of small three-geometry, the resulting one-loop wave function describes a singularity-free universe. This property holds for one-loop functional integrals, which are not necessarily equivalent to solutions of the quantum constraint equations. Full article

General Relativity is an extremely successful theory, at least for weak gravitational fields; however, it breaks down at very high energies, such as in correspondence to the initial singularity. Quantum Gravity is expected to provide more physical insights in relation to this open question. Indeed, one alternative scenario to the Big Bang, that manages to completely avoid the singularity, is offered by Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC), which predicts that the Universe undergoes a collapse to an expansion through a bounce. In this work, we use metric $f\left(R\right)$ gravity to reproduce the modified Friedmann equations which have been obtained in the context of modified loop quantum cosmologies. To achieve this, we apply an order reduction method to the $f\left(R\right)$ field equations, and obtain covariant effective actions that lead to a bounce, for specific models of modified LQC, considering a massless scalar field. Full article

We consider an extended phase space formulation for cosmological and spherically symmetric models in which the choice of a given $\overline{\mu }$-scheme can be implemented dynamically. These models are constructed in the context of the relational formalism by using a canonical transformation on the extended phase space, which provides a Kuchař decomposition of the extended phase space. The resulting model can be understood as a gauge-unfixed model of a given $\overline{\mu }$-scheme. We use this formalism to investigate the restrictions to the allowed $\overline{\mu }$-scheme from this perspective and discuss the differences in the cosmological and spherically symmetric case. This method can be useful, for example, to obtain a $\overline{\mu }$-scheme in a top-down derivation from full LQG to symmetry-reduced effective models, where, for some models, only the ${\mu }_0$-scheme has been obtained thus far. Full article

It has recently been shown that the tunneling wavefunction proposal is consistent with loop quantum geometry corrections, including both holonomy and inverse scale factor corrections, in the gravitational part of a spatially closed isotropic model with a positive cosmological constant. However, in the presence of inflationary potential, the initial singularity is kinetic-dominated, and the effective minisuperspace potential again diverges at the zero scale factor. As the wavefunction in loop quantum cosmology cannot increase towards the zero scale factor, the tunneling wavefunction seems incompatible. We show that consistently including inverse scale factor modifications, in scalar field Hamiltonian, changes the effective potential into a barrier potential, allowing the tunneling proposal. We also discuss the potential quantum instability of the cyclic universe, resulting from tunneling. Full article

We study the dynamics of gauge-invariant scalar perturbations in cosmological scenarios with a modified Friedmann equation, such as quantum gravity bouncing cosmologies. We work within a separate universe approximation which captures wavelengths larger than the cosmological horizon; this approximation has been successfully applied to loop quantum cosmology and group field theory. We consider two variables commonly used to characterise scalar perturbations: the curvature perturbation on uniform-density hypersurfaces $\zeta$ and the comoving curvature perturbation $\mathcal{R}$. For standard cosmological models in general relativity as well as in loop quantum cosmology, these quantities are conserved and equal on super-horizon scales for adiabatic perturbations. Here we show that while these statements can be extended to a more general form of modified Friedmann equations similar to that of loop quantum cosmology, in other cases, such as the simplest group field theory bounce scenario, $\zeta$ is conserved across the bounce whereas $\mathcal{R}$ is not. We relate our results to approaches based on a second-order equation for a single perturbation variable, such as the Mukhanov–Sasaki equation. Full article

Kaniadakis statistics is a widespread paradigm to describe complex systems in the relativistic realm. Recently, gravitational and cosmological scenarios based on Kaniadakis ($\kappa$-deformed) entropy have been considered, leading to generalized models that predict a richer phenomenology comparing to their standard Maxwell–Boltzmann counterparts. The purpose of the present effort is to explore recent advances and future challenges of Gravity and Cosmology in Kaniadakis statistics. More specifically, the first part of the work contains a review of $\kappa$-entropy implications on Holographic Dark Energy, Entropic Gravity, Black hole thermodynamics and Loop Quantum Gravity, among others. In the second part, we focus on the study of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis in Kaniadakis Cosmology. By demanding consistency between theoretical predictions of our model and observational measurements of freeze-out temperature fluctuations and primordial abundances of ${}^{4}He$ and D, we constrain the free $\kappa$-parameter, discussing to what extent the Kaniadakis framework can provide a successful description of the observed Universe. Full article

The present work deals with two kinds of k-essence dark energy models within the framework of loop quantum cosmology (LQC). The two kinds of k-essence models originates from two forms of Lagrangians, i.e., ${\mathcal{L}}_1=F\left(X\right)V(\varphi )$ and ${\mathcal{L}}_2=F\left(X\right)-V(\varphi )$, where $F\left(X\right)$ and $V(\varphi )$ stand for the kinetic term and potential of the scalar field $\varphi$, respectively. Two models are based on different phase variables settings, and the general form of autonomous dynamical system is deduced for each Lagrangian. Then, the dynamical stabilities of the critical points in each model are analysed in different forms of $F\left(X\right)$ and $V(\varphi )$. Model I is a 3-dim system with four stable points, and Model II is a 4-dim system but reduced to a 3-dim system using the symmetry analysis, which has five stable points. Moreover, the corresponding cosmological quantities, such as ${\Omega }_{\varphi }$, $w_{\varphi }$ and q, are calculated at each critical point. To compare these with the case of the classical Einstein cosmology (EC), the dynamical evolutionary trajectories in the phase space and evolutionary curves of the cosmological quantities are drawn for both EC and LQC cases, which shows that the loop quantum gravity effects diminish in the late-time universe but are significant in the early time. Further, the effects of interaction $Q=\alpha H{\rho }_m$ on the evolutions of the universe are discussed. With the loop quantum gravity effects, bouncing universe is achieved in both models for different initial values of ${\varphi }_0$, ${\dot{\varphi }}_0$, $H_0$, ${\rho }_0$ and coupling parameter $\alpha$, which helps to avoid singularities. However, the interaction has little effect on bounce, although it is important to the stability of some critical points. Full article