Fluctuation, Dissipation and Irreversibility in Cosmology

We discuss the appearance of time-asymmetric behavior in physical processes in cosmology and in the dynamics of the Universe itself. We begin with an analysis of the nature and origin of irreversibility in well-known physical processes such as dispersion, diffusion, dissipation and mixing, and make the distinction between processes whose irreversibility arises from the stipulation of special initial conditions, and those arising from the system's interaction with a coarse-grained environment. We then study the irreversibility associated with quantum fluctuations in cosmological processes like particle creation and the `birth of the Universe'. We suggest that the backreaction effect of such quantum processes can be understood as the manifestation of a fluctuation-dissipation relation relating fluctuations of quantum fields to dissipations in the dynamics of spacetime. For the same reason it is shown that dissipation is bound to appear in the dynamics of minisuperspace cosmologies. This provides a natural course for the emergence of a cosmological and thermodynamic arrow of time and suggests a meaningful definition of gravitational entropy. We conclude with a discussion on the criteria for the choice of coarse-grainings and the stability of persistent physical structures. Invited Talk given at the Conference on The Physical Origin of Time-Asymmetry Huelva, Spain, Oct. 1991, Proceedings eds. J. J. Halliwell, J. Perez-Mercader and W. H. Zurek, Cambridge University Press, 1993