Dark energy and the entropy of the observable universe

Charles H. Lineweaver, Chas A. Egan

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

    1 Citation (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The initial low entropy of the universe has allowed irreversible processes, such as the reader reading this abstract, to happen in the universe. This initial low entropy is due to a low value for the initial gravitational entropy of the universe. The standard ΛCDM cosmology has a cosmic event horizon and an associated Gibbons-Hawking entropy. We compute the entropy of the universe including the entropy of the current event horizon and the entropy of the matter and photons within the cosmic event horizon. We estimate the entropy of the current cosmic event horizon to be 2.6±0.3×10122k and find it to be ∼1019 times larger than the next most dominant contribution, which is from super massive black holes. We plot an entropy budget as a function of time and find that the cosmic event horizon entropy has dominated other sources of entropy since 10-20 seconds after the big bang. See Egan & Lineweaver (2009) for details and discussion.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationInvisible Universe International Conference
    Pages645-651
    Number of pages7
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2010
    EventInvisible Universe International Conference - Paris, France
    Duration: 29 Jun 20093 Jul 2009

    Publication series

    NameAIP Conference Proceedings
    Volume1241
    ISSN (Print)0094-243X
    ISSN (Electronic)1551-7616

    Conference

    ConferenceInvisible Universe International Conference
    Country/TerritoryFrance
    CityParis
    Period29/06/093/07/09

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