Bouncing Universe in Loop Quantum Gravity: full theory calculation

We examine the nature of the cosmological Big Bounce transition within the loop geometry underlying loop quantum cosmology at classical and quantum levels. Our canonical quantization method is an alternative to the standard loop quantum cosmology. An evolution parameter we use has a clear interpretation. Our method opens the door for analyses of spectra of physical observables like the energy density and the volume operator. We find that one cannot determine the energy scale ...

Loop quantum cosmology applies techniques derived for a background independent quantization of general relativity to cosmological situations and draws conclusions for the very early universe. Direct implications for the singularity problem as well as phenomenology in the context of inflation or bouncing universes result, which will be reviewed here. The discussion focuses on recent new results for structure formation and generalizations of the methods.

General relativity predicts a singularity in the beginning of the universe being called big bang. Recent developments in loop quantum cosmology avoid the singularity and the big bang is replaced by a big bounce. A classical theory of gravitation in flat space-time also avoids the singularity under natural conditions on the density parameters. The universe contracts to a positive minimum and then it expands during all times. It is not symmetric with regard to its minimum imply...

We examine the nature of the cosmological big-bounce (BB) transition within the loop geometry underlying Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) at classical and quantum levels. Our canonical quantization method is an alternative to the standard LQC. Our method opens the door for analyzes of spectra of physical observables like energy density and volume operator. We find that one cannot determine the energy scale specific to BB by making use of the loop geometry without an extra input f...

A brief overview of loop quantum cosmology of homogeneous isotropic models is presented with emphasis on the origin of and subtleties associated with the resolution of big bang and big crunch singularities. These results bear out the remarkable intuition that John Wheeler had. Discussion is organized at two levels. The the main text provides a bird's eye view of the subject that should be accessible to non-experts. Appendices address conceptual and technical issues that are o...

The detailed formulation for loop quantum cosmology (LQC) in the Bianchi I model with a scalar massless field has been constructed. In this paper, its effective dynamics is studied in two improved strategies for implementing the LQC discreteness corrections. Both schemes show that the big bang is replaced by the big bounces, which take place up to three times, once in each diagonal direction, when the area or volume scale factor approaches the critical values in the Planck re...

This chapter provides a review of the frameworks developed for cosmological perturbation theory in loop quantum cosmology, and applications to various models of the early universe including inflation, ekpyrosis and the matter bounce, with an emphasis on potential observational consequences. It also includes a discussion on extensions to include non-Gaussianities and background anisotropies, as well as on its limitations concerning trans-Planckian perturbations and quantizatio...

Various prescriptions proposed in the literature to attain the polymeric quantization of a homogeneous and isotropic flat spacetime coupled to a massless scalar field are carefully analyzed in order to discuss their differences. A detailed numerical analysis confirms that, for states which are not deep in the quantum realm, the expectation values and dispersions of some natural observables of interest in cosmology are qualitatively the same for all the considered prescription...

I present a streamlined review of how the separate universe approach to cosmological perturbation theory can be used to study the dynamics of long-wavelength scalar perturbations in loop quantum cosmology, and then use it to calculate how long-wavelength curvature perturbations evolve across the loop quantum cosmology bounce assuming a constant equation of state. A similar calculation is possible for tensor modes using results from a complementary approach to cosmological per...

Since there are quantization ambiguities in constructing the Hamiltonian constraint operator in isotropic loop quantum cosmology, it is crucial to check whether the key features of loop quantum cosmology, such as the quantum bounce and effective scenario, are robust against the ambiguities. In this paper, we consider a typical quantization ambiguity arising from the quantization of the field strength of the gravitational connection. An alternative Hamiltonian constraint opera...