Seeding the vacuum with entropy: the Chaplygin-like vacuum hypothesis

Abstract

It is proposed that the vacuum admits two different phases as described by the Chaplygin equation of state or its generalised version: a phase where the energy density behaves as if dominated by non-relativistic matter and a de Sitter phase. The particle production due to the expansion that takes place at the matter-like phase can generate entanglement entropy and provide, through interactions, the environment that turn gravitational quantum features into classical ones. In the ensued de Sitter phase, the cosmological constant can be suppressed by inflation.