Thermodynamics of apparent horizon in mimetic cosmology

Abstract

A new perspective toward Einstein’s theory of general relativity, called mimetic gravity, was suggested in [A. H. Chamseddine and V. Mukhanov, J. High Energy Phys. 1311 (2013) 135] by isolating the conformal degree of freedom in a covariant fashion through a re-parametrization of the physical metric in terms of an auxiliary metric and a mimetic field. In this paper, we first derive the Friedmann equations of the Friedmann–Robertson–Walker (FRW) universe with any spatial curvature in mimetic gravity. Then, we disclose that one can always rewrite the Friedmann equations of mimetic cosmology in the form of the first law of thermodynamics, [Formula: see text], on the apparent horizon. We confirm that the entropy associated with the apparent horizon in mimetic cosmology still obeys the area law of entropy which is useful in studying the thermodynamical properties of the black holes in mimetic gravity. We also examine the time evolution of the total entropy in mimetic cosmology and show that, with the local equilibrium assumption, the generalized second law of thermodynamics is fulfilled in a region enclosed by the apparent horizon. Our study further supports the viability of the mimetic gravity from a thermodynamic viewpoint and provides a strong consistency check of this model.