In this paper we have considered holographic dark energy and studied its cosmology and thermodynamics. We have analyzed the generalized second law (GSL) of thermodynamics in a flat universe consisting of interacting dark energy and dark matter. We performed the analysis under both thermal equilibrium and nonequilibrium conditions. If the apparent horizon is taken as the boundary of the universe, we have shown that the rate of change of the total entropy of the universe is proportional to
which in fact shows that the GSL is valid at the apparent horizon, irrespective of the sign of the deceleration parameter,
. Hence, for any form of dark energy, the apparent horizon can be considered as a perfect thermodynamic boundary of the universe. We confirmed this conclusion by using the holographic dark energy model. When the event horizon is taken as the boundary, we found that the GSL is only partially satisfied. The analysis under nonequilibrium conditions revealed that the GSL is satisfied if the temperature of the dark energy is greater than the temperature of the dark matter.
We explore the validity of the generalized second law (GSL) of thermodynamics in flat FRW universe with apparent horizon and event horizon as the boundary. We found that in a universe with holographic Ricci dark energy and dark matter, interacting with each other, the GSL is satisfied at the apparent horizon and partially satisfied at the event horizon under thermal equilibrium conditions. We also analyses the GSL under non-equilibrium conditions and shows that the fulfillment of GSL at the apparent horizon implies that the temperature of the dark energy is greater than that of the horizon. Thus there occurs a flow of dark energy towards the apparent horizon. As a result the entropy of the dark energy decreases and that of horizon increases. This is verified by finding the evolution of the dark energy entropy and horizon entropy in a dark energy dominated universe under non-equilibrium conditions.
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