Probing cosmological singularities with quantum fields: Open and closed FLRW universes

Abstract

It was recently pointed out that linear quantum fields $\hat \phi(x)$ can be meaningfully propagated across the big bang (and the big crunch) singularities of spatially flat Friedmann, Lema\^itre, Robertson, Walker (FLRW) universes \cite{ADLS2021}. Recall that $\hat \phi(x)$, as well as renormalized observables $\langle\hat \phi(x)^2 \rangle_{ren}$ and $\langle \hat T_{ab}(x)\rangle_{ren}$, are distribution-valued already in Minkowskian quantum field theories. It was shown that they can be extended as well-defined distributions even when these space-times are enlarged to include the big-bang (or the big crunch). We generalize these results to spatially closed and open FLRW models, showing that this `tameness' of cosmological singularities is not an artifact of the technical simplifications due to spatial flatness. Our analysis also provides explicit expressions of $\langle\hat \phi(x) \hat \phi(x') \rangle_{ren}$, $\langle\hat \phi(x)^2 \rangle_{ren}$ and $\langle \hat T_{ab}(x)\rangle_{ren}$ in closed and open universes for minimally coupled massless scalar fields and discuss the ambiguities in the definition of $\langle \hat T_{ab}(x)\rangle_{ren}$ at the big-bang. While the technical expressions are more complicated than in the spatially flat case, there is also an unexpected conceptual simplification: the infrared divergence \cite{fp} is now absent because, in effect, the spatial curvature provides a natural cutoff. Finally, we further clarify the sense in which quantum field theory can continue to be well defined even though the extended space-time is not globally hyperbolic because of the singularity, and suggest directions for further work.