Is the Big Rip unreachable?

Abstract

I investigate the repercussions of particle production when the Universe is dominated by a hypothetical phantom substance. I show that backreaction due to particle production prevents the density from shooting to infinity at a Big Rip, but instead forces it to stabilise at a large constant value. Afterwards there is a period of de-Sitter inflation. I speculate that this might lead to a cyclic Universe.

Comments: 9 pages, 2 figures. Published version