Tunneling in a Cosmological Model with Violation of Strong Energy Condition

The tunneling rate, with exact prefactor, is calculated to first order in \hbar for a closed FRW universe filled with perfect fluid violating the strong energy condition. The calculations are performed by applying the dilute-instanton approximation on the corresponding Duru-Kleinert path integral. It is shown that a closed FRW universe filled with a perfect fluid with small violation of strong energy condition is more probable to tunnel than the same universe with large violation of strong energy condition.