A Stringy Correspondence Principle in Cosmology

Abstract

We study a d-dimensional FRW universe, containing a perfect fluid with p = w ρand \frac{1} {d - 1} \le w \le 1, and find a correspondence principle similar to that of Horowitz and Polchinski in the black hole case. This principle follows quite generally from thermodynamics and the conservation of energy momentum tensor, and can be stated along similar lines as in the black hole case: ``When the temperature T of the universe becomes of order string scale the universe state becomes a highly excited string state. At the transition, the entropies and energies of the universe and strings differ by factors of {\cal O}(1).'' Such a matching is absent for w \ne 1 if the transition is assumed to be when the curvature or the horizon length is of order string scale.