SELF-REPLICATION COSMOLOGY: DARK PARTICLES AS A MECHANISM OF COSMIC EXPANSION AND A ROUTE TO A COSMOLOGY WITHOUT AN INITIAL SINGULARITY

This paper considers the hypothesis that the accelerated expansion of the Universe is driven by the continuous self-reproduction of hypothetical dark particles filling intergalactic space. In the limit of constant particle concentration the Hubble parameter takes the value H = r/3, where r is the specific self-replication frequency. The exact meaning of this relation is clarified: it describes not the present epoch but the limiting state approached asymptotically, so that the strict statement is H∞ = r/3 with H > H∞ in the past. The replication mechanism is identified with adiabatic matter creation, a programme developed since the late 1980s, which places the hypothesis in an existing theoretical context and makes it quantitatively testable. The question of an initial singularity is treated separately: for a constant replication rate the solution remains singular, whereas for a rate increasing with density a second fixed point appears and the cosmological solution becomes non-singular with an infinite past. The conditions under which this happens are stated, and the phenomena the model does not currently explain are listed.