Thawing and freezing quintessence models: a thermodynamic consideration

Abstract

Abstract Thawing and freezing quintessence models are compared thermodynamically. Both of them are found to disobey the generalized second law of thermodynamics. However, for freezing models, there is still a scope as this breakdown occurs in the past, deep inside the radiation dominated era, when a standard scalar field model with a pressureless matter is not a correct description of the matter content. The thawing model has a pathological breakdown in terms of thermodynamics in a finite future.