Irreversible thermodynamic description of interacting dark energy - dark matter cosmological models

Abstract: We investigate the interaction between dark energy and dark matter in the framework of irreversible thermodynamics of open systems with matter creation/annihilation. We consider dark energy and dark matter as an interacting two component (scalar field and "ordinary" dark matter) cosmological fluid in a homogeneous spatially flat and isotropic Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) Universe. The thermodynamics of open systems as applied together with the gravitational field equations to the two component cosmological fluid leads to a generalization of the elementary dark energy-dark mater interaction theory, in which the decay (creation) pressures are explicitly considered as parts of the cosmological fluid stress-energy tensor. Specific models describing coherently oscillating scalar waves, leading to a high particle production at the beginning of the oscillatory period, and models with a constant potential energy scalar field are considered. Furthermore, exact and numerical solutions of the gravitational field equations with dark energy-dark matter interaction are also obtained.