Unbraiding the Bounce: superluminality around the corner.- [PDF] - [Article]

David A. Dobre, Andrei V. Frolov, José T. Gálvez Ghersi, Sabir Ramazanov, Alexander Vikman

We study a particular realisation of the cosmological bounce scenario proposed recently by Ijjas and Steinhardt. First, we find that their bouncing solution starts from a divergent and ends with a vanishing sound speed. Thus, the solution connects two strongly coupled configurations. These pathologies are separated from the bouncing regime by a few Planck times only. Then we reveal the exact structure of the Lagrangian. This allowed us to consider other cosmological solutions of the theory and analyse the phase space. In particular, we find other bouncing solutions and solutions with the superluminal sound speed. These stable superluminal states can be continuously transformed into the solution constructed by Ijjas and Steinhardt. We discuss the consequences of this feature for a possible UV-completion.