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How Much NEC Breaking Can the Universe Endure?

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arxiv 2503.19955 v2 pith:GRT4Z33L submitted 2025-03-25 gr-qc astro-ph.COhep-phhep-th

How Much NEC Breaking Can the Universe Endure?

classification gr-qc astro-ph.COhep-phhep-th
keywords energyconditionnulldarkparametersmearedconstraintsequation-of-state
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Quantum fields can notoriously violate the null energy condition (NEC). In a cosmological context, NEC violation can lead to, e.g., dark energy at late times with an equation-of-state parameter smaller than $-1$ and nonsingular bounces at early times. However, it is expected that there should still be a limit in semiclasssical gravity to how much `negative energy' can accumulate over time and in space as a result of quantum effects. In the course of formulating quantum-motivated energy conditions, the smeared null energy condition has emerged as a recent proposal. This condition conjectures the existence of a semilocal bound on negative energy along null geodesics, which is expected to hold in semiclassical gravity. In this work, we show how the smeared null energy condition translates into theoretical constraints on NEC-violating cosmologies. Specifically, we derive the implied bounds on dark energy equation-of-state parameters and an inequality between the duration of a bouncing phase and the growth rate of the Hubble parameter at the bounce. In the case of dark energy, we identify the parameter space over which the smeared null energy condition is consistent with the recent constraints from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI).

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Cited by 5 Pith papers

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