arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Diego Pavon.
In this paper we highlight the fact that the physical content of hyperbolic theories of relativistic dissipative fluids is, in general, much broader than that of the parabolic ones. This is substantiated by presenting an ample range of dissipative fluids whose behavior noticeably departs from Navier-Stokes'.
Using the existence of a covariant conserved quantity on large perturbation scales in a spatially flat perfect fluid or scalar field universe, we present a general formula for gauge-invariantly defined comoving energy density perturbations which encodes the entire linear perturbation dynamics in a closed time integral. On this basis we discuss perturbation modes in different cosmological epochs.
The evolution of a class of inhomogeneous spherically symmetric universe models possessing a varying cosmological term and a material fluid, with an adiabatic index either constant or not, is studied.
Particle production processes in the expanding universe are described within a simple kinetic model. The equilibrium conditions for a Maxwell-Boltzmann gas with variable particle number are investigated. We find that radiation and nonrelativistic matter may be in equilibrium at the same temperature provided the matter particles are created at a rate that is half the expansion rate. Using the fact that the creation of particles is dynamically equivalent to a nonvanishing bulk pressure we calculate the backreaction of this process on the cosmological dynamics. It turns out that the `adiabatic' creation of massive particles with an equilibrium distribution for the latter necessarily implies power-law inflation. Exponential inflation in this context is shown to become inconsistent with the second law of thermodynamics after a time interval of the order of the Hubble time.
Different cooling rates of interacting fluid components of the expanding cosmic medium give rise to entropy producing bulk stresses. With the help of effective bulk pressures, on the other hand, one may phenomenologically take into account cosmological particle production processes. We report on recent progress in bulk viscous cosmology both on the phenomenological level and on the level of relativistic kinetic theory.
Recently, the phenomenological description of cosmological particle production processes in terms of effective viscous pressures has attracted some attention. Using a simple creation rate model we discuss the question to what extent this approach is compatible with the kinetic theory of a relativistic gas. We find the effective viscous pressure approach to be consistent with this model for homogeneous spacetimes but not for inhomogeneous ones.