point of view the inclusion of viscosity concepts in the macroscopic theory of the cosmic fluid would appear most natural, as an ideal fluid is after all an abstraction (exluding special cases such as superconductivity). Making use of modern observational results for the Hubble parameter plus standard Friedmann formalism, we may extrapolate the description of the universe back in time up to the inflationary era, or we may go to the opposite extreme and analyze the probable ultimate fate of the universe. In this review, we discuss a variety of topics in cosmology when it is enlarged in order to contain a bulk viscosity. Various forms of this viscosity, when expressed in terms of the fluid density or the Hubble parameter, are discussed. Furthermore, we consider homogeneous as well as inhomogeneous equations of state. We investigate viscous cosmology in the early universe, examining the viscosity effects on the various inflationary observables. Additionally, we study viscous cosmology in the late universe, containing current acceleration and the possible future singularities, and we investigate how one may even unify inflationary and late-time acceleration. Finally, we analyze the viscosity-induced crossing through the quintessence-phantom divide, we examine the realization of viscosity-driven cosmological bounces, and we briefly discuss how the Cardy–Verlinde formula is affected by viscosity.\ud © 2017 World Scientific Publishing Company From a hydrodynamicist’sPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The big bang singularity could be understood as a breakdown of Einstein's General Relativity at very high energies. Adopting this viewpoint, other theories, that implement Einstein Cosmology at high energies, might solve the problem of the primeval singularity. One of them is Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) with a small cosmological constant that models a universe moving along an ellipse, which prevents singularities like the big bang or the big rip, in the phase space (H, ρ), where H is the Hubble parameter and ρ the energy density of the universe. Using LQC when one considers a model of universe filled by radiation and matter where, due to the cosmological constant, there are a de Sitter and an anti de Sitter solution. This means that one obtains a bouncing non-singular universe which is in the contracting phase at early times. After leaving this phase, i.e., after bouncing, it passes trough a radiation and matter dominated phase and finally at late times it expands in an accelerated way (current cosmic acceleration). This model does not suffer from the horizon and flatness problems as in big bang cosmology, where a period of inflation that increases the size of our universe in more than 60 e-folds is needed in order to solve both problems. The model has two mechanisms to avoid these problems: The evolution of the universe through a contracting phase and a period of super-inflation (Ḣ > 0).

In the framework of a flat Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) geometry, we present a non-geodesically past complete model of our universe without the big bang singularity at finite cosmic time, describing its evolution starting from its early inflationary era up to the present accelerating phase. We found that a hydrodynamical fluid with nonlinear equation of state could result in such scenario, which after the end of this inflationary stage, suffers a sudden phase transition and enters into the stiff matter dominated era, and the universe becomes reheated due to a huge amount of particle production. Finally, it asymptotically enters into the de Sitter phase concluding the present accelerated expansion. Using the reconstruction technique, we also show that, this background provides an extremely simple inflationary quintessential potential whose inflationary part is given by the well-known 1-dimensional Higgs potential, i.e., a Double Well Inflationary potential, and the quintessential one by an exponential potential that leads to a deflationary regime after this inflation, and it can depict the current cosmic acceleration at late times. Moreover the Higgs potential leads to a power spectrum of the cosmological perturbations which fit well with the latest Planck estimations. Further, we compared our viable potential with some known inflationary quintessential potential, which shows that our quintessential model, that is, the Higgs potential combined with the exponential one, is an improved version of them because it contains an analytic solution that allows us to perform all analytic calculations. Finally, we have shown that the introduction of a non zero cosmological constant simplifies the potential considerably with an analytic behavior of the background which again permits us to evaluate all the quantities analytically. INTRODUCTIONThe complete evolution of our universe is still a mystery, and probably, one of the most interesting topics in the history of cosmology. Until now, we have some theories describing different phases of our universe, in agreement with the latest observations, which tell us that our universe underwent a rapid accelerating phase during its very early evolution, namely, the inflation [1, 2], and presently it is going through a phase of accelerated expansion [3,4]. The gap between these two successive accelerating expansions is described by three sequential decelerated phases, the first one is the stiff matter dominated era, then there was a radiation dominated phase, and finally, before its current accelerating phase, the universe was matter dominated. However, since the beginning of modern cosmology, the big bang still remains as one of the controversial issues for cosmologists. Hence, it has been questioned several times, and alternatively, an existence of some kind of "nonsingular" universe (a model of our universe without finite cosmic time singularity) [5] has been proposed just to replace this big bang singularity, but the evolution of the universe will remain same. As a ...

We demonstrate how holonomy corrections in loop quantum cosmology (LQC) prevent the Big Rip singularity by introducing a quadratic modification in terms of the energy density ρ in the Friedmann equation in the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) space-time in a consistent and useful way. In addition, we investigate whether other kind of singularities like Type II,III and IV singularities survive or are avoided in LQC when the universe is filled by a barotropic fluid with the state equation P = −ρ − f (ρ), where P is the pressure and f (ρ) a function of ρ. It is shown that the Little Rip cosmology does not happen in LQC. Nevertheless, the occurrence of the Pseudo-Rip cosmology, in which the phantom universe approaches the de Sitter one asymptotically, is established, and the corresponding example is presented. It is interesting that the disintegration of bound structures in the Pseudo-Rip cosmology in LQC always takes more time than that in Einstein cosmology.Our investigation on future singularities is generalized to that in modified teleparallel gravity, where LQC and Brane Cosmology in the Randall-Sundrum scenario are the best examples. It is remarkable that F (T ) gravity may lead to all the kinds of future singularities including Little Rip.

As an alternative to the paradigm of slow roll inflation, we propose an extended scenario of the matter bounce cosmology in which the Universe has experienced a quasi-matter contracting phase with a variable background equation of state parameter. This extended matter bounce scenario can be realized by considering a single scalar field evolving along an approximately exponential potential. Our result reveals that the rolling of the scalar field in general leads to a running behavior on the spectral index of primordial cosmological perturbations and a negative running can be realized in this model. We constrain the corresponding parameter space by using the newly released Planck data. To apply this scenario, we revisit bouncing cosmologies within the context of modified gravity theories, in particular, the holonomy corrected loop quantum cosmology and teleparallel F (T ) gravity. A gravitational process of reheating is presented in such a matter bounce scenario to demonstrate the condition of satisfying current observations. We also comment on several unresolved issues that often appear in matter bounce models.