Symmetry restoration in the early Universe

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Abstract
The author discusses a simple model in which the vacuum expectation value of a complex scalar field phi is non-zero in the flat-space vacuum. Generalising to curved space and choosing the conformal vacuum in Friedmann models it is found that in hot big bang models symmetry is restored at early times whereas in cold models two new effects arise-a classical curvature term and a zero-point fluctuation term. These have opposite effects and lead to restoration only in closed universes.

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