Quark-Hadron Phase Transitions in Viscous Early Universe

Based on hot big bang theory, the cosmological matter is conjectured to undergo QCD phase transition(s) to hadrons, when the universe was about $1-10 \mu$s old. In the present work, we study the quark-hadron phase transition, by taking into account the effect of the bulk viscosity. We analyze the evolution of the quantities relevant for the physical description of the early universe, namely, the energy density $\rho$, temperature $T$, Hubble parameter $H$ and scale factor $a$ before, during and after the phase transition. To study the cosmological dynamics and the time evolution we use both analytical and numerical methods. By assuming that the phase transition may be described by an effective nucleation theory (prompt {\it first-order} phase transition), we also consider the case where the universe evolved through a mixed phase with a small initial supercooling and monotonically growing hadronic bubbles. The numerical estimation of the cosmological parameters, $a$ and $H$ for instance, makes it clear that the time evolution varies from phase to phase. As the QCD era turns to be fairly accessible in the high-energy experiments and the lattice QCD simulations, the QCD equation of state is very well defined. In light of this, we introduce a systematic study of the {\it cross-over} quark-hadron phase transition and an estimation for the time evolution of Hubble parameter.Comment: 27 pages, 17 figures, revtex style (To appear in Phys. Rev. D). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:gr-qc/040404

Thermodynamics in the Viscous Early Universe

Assuming that the matter filling the background geometry in the Early Universe was a free gas and no phase transitions took place, we discuss the thermodynamics of this closed system using classical approaches. We found that essential cosmological quantities, such as the Hubble parameter $H$, the scaling factor $a$ and the curvature parameter $k$, can be derived from this simple model. The results are compatible with the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker model and Einstein field equations. Including finite bulk viscosity coefficient leads to important changes in the cosmological quantities. Accordingly, our picture about evolution of the Universe and its astrophysical consequences seems to be a subject of radical revision. We found that $k$ strongly depends on thermodynamics of the cosmic background matter. The time scale, at which negative curvature might take place, depends on the relation between the matter content and the total energy. Using quantum and statistical approaches, we introduced expressions for $H$ and the bulk viscosity coefficient.Comment: 15 pages, 4 eps figures, invited talk given at the "Second IAGA-Symposium", Cairo-Egypt, 4-8 Jan. (2010