Narrow Results

A Gauss–Bonnet dark energy model is considered. It is inspired by string/M-theory and also takes into account quantum contributions, which are introduced from a conformal quantum anomaly. The corresponding solutions for the Hubble rate, H, are studied starting from the Friedmann–Robertson–Walker equation. It is seen that, as a pure effect of the quantum contributions, a new solution for H exists in some region, which does not appear in the classical case. The behavior of all encountered solutions is studied with care, in particular the role played by the quantum correction term — which depends on the number of matter fields — in the stability of the solutions around its asymptotic value. It is argued that, contrary to what happens in the classical case, quantum effects remarkably lead to the realization of a de Sitter stage which corresponds to the inflation/dark energy stages, even for positive values of the f₀ constant (coupling of the field with the Gauss–Bonnet invariant).

The importance of the tomographic approach is that either in quantum mechanics as in classical mechanics the state of a physical system is expressed with marginal probability functions called tomograms. The extension of this procedure to quantum cosmology is straightforward. But in this paper, instead of using the tomographic representation, we use tomograms to analyze the properties of the quantum and classical universes, starting from the wave functions in quantum cosmology and from the phase space distributions in classical cosmology. In this, there is a part where we resume the properties of the tomograms. Then, we apply them to study and discuss the properties of the initial conditions introduced by Hartle and Hawking, Vilenkin and Linde and finally we argue about their classical transition. According to the results of this paper it follows that the decay of the cosmological constant from the Planck scale to the present one could be responsible for the transition of the quantum universe to the classical one.