Validation of the Numen Field by the Energy Conditions in the Early Universe

Abstract

The energy conditions in general relativity are introduced to establish powerful theorems without having to restrict their applicability to specific choices of the stress-energy tensor. They are famously invoked, e.g., to prove the singularity theorems of Penrose and Hawking, but have also been applied elsewhere, including various tests of certain cosmological theories. These conditions have become somewhat controversial, however, because they appear to be violated by commonly accepted scenarios, such as inflation shortly after the Big Bang and late-time acceleration of the cosmic expansion. But accommodating these processes by abandoning all of the energy conditions will promote other disquieting possibilities, including the breakdown of causality with traversable wormholes and closed timeloops. This paper advocates for the opposite viewpoint, demonstrating that the ‘numen’ scalar field, derived from the zero active mass condition in general relativity, satisfies all of the energy conditions in the early Universe. This unique feature among scalar fields adds to its success in accounting for the observed properties of the cosmic microwave background better than its inflationary counterpart. Specifically, numen's complete consistency with all of the energy conditions, and inflation's violation of at least one of them, provides additional justification for theoretically favoring the former over the latter.