Dark Energy: A Unifying View

Different models of the cosmic substratum which pretend to describe the present stage of accelerated expansion of the Universe like the $\Lambda$CDM model or a Chaplygin gas, can be seen as special realizations of a holographic dark energy cosmology if the option of an interaction between pressurless dark matter and dark energy is taken seriously. The corresponding interaction strength parameter plays the role of a cosmological constant. Differences occur at the perturbative level. In particular, the pressure perturbations are intrinsically non-adiabatic.Comment: 9 pages, selected for "Honorable Mention" by the Gravity Research Foundatio

Cosmic evolution during primordial black hole evaporation

Primordial black holes with a narrow mass range are regarded as a nonrelativistic fluid component with an equation of state for dust. The impact of the black hole evaporation on the dynamics of the early universe is studied by resorting to a two-fluid model. We find periods of intense radiation reheating in the initial and final stages of the evaporation.Comment: 12 pages, Revtex, two figures, to appear in Phys.Rev.

Holographic Dark Energy and Present Cosmic Acceleration

We review the notion of holographic dark energy and assess its significance in the light of the well documented cosmic acceleration at the present time. We next propose a model of holographic dark energy in which the infrared cutoff is set by the Hubble scale. The model accounts for the aforesaid acceleration and, by construction, is free of the cosmic coincidence problem.Comment: 6 pages. To appear in the Proceedings of the XXVIII Spanish Relativity Meeting. Key words: Cosmology, Holography, Late accelerated expansion, Dark energ

Self-interacting gas in a gravitational wave field

We investigate a relativistic self-interacting gas in the field of an external {\it pp} gravitational wave. Based on symmetry considerations we ask for those forces which are able to compensate the imprint of the gravitational wave on the macroscopic 4-acceleration of the gaseous fluid. We establish an exactly solvable toy model according to which the stationary states which characterize such a situation have negative entropy production and are accompanied by instabilities of the microscopic particle motion. These features are similar to those which one encounters in phenomena of self-organization in many-particle systems.Comment: 17 pages, to be published in the GRG-Journa

Thermodynamic equilibrium in the expanding universe

We show that a relativistic gas may be at ``global'' equilibrium in the expanding universe for any equation of state $0 < p \leq \rho /3$, provided that the gas particles move under the influence of a self-interacting, effective one-particle force in between elastic binary collisions. In the force-free limit we recover the equilibrium conditions for ultrarelativistic matter which imply the existence of a conformal timelike Killing vector.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, to appear in GR

"Understanding" cosmological bulk viscosity

A universe consisting of two interacting perfect fluids with the same 4-velocity is considered. A heuristic mean free time argument is used to show that the system as a whole cannot be perfect as well but neccessarily implies a nonvanishing bulk viscosity. A new formula for the latter is derived and compared with corresponding results of radiative hydrodynamics.Comment: 12 pages, Latex file, to appear in MNRA

Inflation in a self-interacting gas universe

We show that a de Sitter spacetime is a solution of Einstein's field equations with the energy momentum tensor of a self-interacting, classical Maxwell-Boltzmann gas in collisional equilibrium. The self-interaction is described by a four-force which is quadratic in the (spatially projected) particle four-momenta. This force does not preserve the particle number and gives rise to an exponential increase in the comoving entropy of the universe while the temperature of the latter remains constant. These properties of a gas universe are related to the existence of a ``projector-conformal'' timelike Killing vector representing a symmetry which is ``in between'' the symmetries characterized by a Killing vector and those characterized by a conformal Killing vector.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex, Journal reference: Phys.Rev.D58 063503 (1998