Some exact results on the Belinski-Khalatnikov-Lifshitz scenario

Abstract

The well-known Bielinski-Khalatnikov-Lifshitz (BKL) scenario for the universe near the cosmological singularity is supplemented with a few exact results following from the BKL asymptotic of the Einstein equations: (1) The cosmological singularity is proved to be an inevitable beginning or end of the universe as described by these equations. (2) Attaining the singularity from shrinking initial conditions requires infinite time parameter $τ$; no singularity of any kind may occur in a finite $τ$. (3) The previously found exact solution [P.G. and W. Piechocki, Eur. Phys. J. C 82:216 (2022)] is the only asymptotic with well-defined proportions between the directional scale factors which have been appropriately compensated against indefinite growth of anisotropy. In all other cases, the universe undergoes oscillations of Kasner type, which reduce the length scales to nearly zero in some directions, while largely extending it in the others. Together with instability of the exact solution [op. cit.], it makes the approach to the singularity inevitably chaotic. (4) Reduced equations are proposed and explicitly solved to describe these oscillations near their turning points. In logarithmic variables, the oscillations are found to have sawtooth shapes. A by-product is a quadric of kinetic energy, a simple geometric tool for all this analysis.