Quantum fields near phantom-energy “sudden” singularities

Abstract

This paper is committed to calculations near a type of future singularity driven by phantom energy. At the singularities considered, the scale factor remains finite but its derivative diverges. The general behavior of barotropic phantom energy producing this singularity is calculated under the assumption that near the singularity such fluid is the dominant contributor. We use the semiclassical formula for renormalized stress tensors of conformally invariant fields in conformally flat spacetimes and analyze the softening/enhancing of the singularity due to quantum vacuum contributions. This dynamical analysis is then compared to results from thermodynamical considerations. In both cases, the vacuum states of quantized scalar and spinor fields strengthen the accelerating expansion near the singularity whereas the vacuum states of vector fields weaken it.