Bouncing universe in a heat bath

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a thermal description for photon modes within the context of bouncing universe. Within this study, we start with a Lorentz-breaking dispersion relation which accounts for modified Friedmann equations with a bounce solution. We calculate the spectral radiance, the entropy, the Helmholtz free energy, the heat capacity and the mean energy. Nevertheless, the latter two ones turn out to contribute only in a trivial manner. Furthermore, one intriguing aspect gives rise to: for some configurations of [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], the thermodynamical behavior of the system seems to indicate instability. However, despite showing this particularity, the solutions of the thermodynamic functions in general turn out to agree with the literature, e.g. the second law of thermodynamics is maintained. More so, all the results are derived analytically and three different regimes of temperature of the universe are also considered, i.e. the inflationary era, the electroweak epoch and the cosmic microwave background.