Multihorizon spherically symmetric spacetimes with several scales of vacuum energy

We present a family of spherically symmetric multihorizon spacetimes with a vacuum dark fluid, associated with a time-dependent and spatially inhomogeneous cosmological term. The vacuum dark fluid is defined in a model-independent way by the symmetry of its stressenergy tensor, i.e. its invariance under Lorentz boosts in a distinguished spatial direction (p r = ρ for the spherically symmetric fluid), which makes dark fluid essentially anisotropic and allows its density to evolve. The related cosmological models belong to the Lemaître class of models with anisotropic fluids and describe evolution of a universe with several scales of vacuum energy related to phase transitions during its evolution. The typical behavior of solutions and the number of spacetime horizons are determined by the number of vacuum scales. We study in detail the model with three vacuum scales: GUT, QCD and that responsible for the present accelerated expansion. The model parameters are fixed by the observational data and by conditions of analyticity and causality. We find that our Universe has three horizons. During the first inflation, the Universe enters a T-region, which makes expansion irreversible. After second phase transition at the QCD scale, the Universe enters R-region, where for a long time its geometry remains almost pseudo-Euclidean. After crossing the third horizon related to the present vacuum density, the Universe should have to enter the next T-region with the inevitable expansion. © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd.