Consistent NEC-violation: towards creating a universe in the laboratory

Abstract

Null Energy Condition (NEC) can be violated in a consistent way in models with unconventional kinetic terms, notably, in Galileon theories and their generalizations. We make use of one of these, the scale-invariant kinetic braiding model, to discuss whether a universe can in principle be created by man-made processes. We find that even though the simplest models of this sort can have both healthy Minkowski vacuum and consistent NEC-violating phase, there is an obstruction for creating a universe in a straightforward fashion. To get around this obstruction, we design a more complicated model, and present a scenario for the creation of a universe in the laboratory.