The fate of bound systems through Sudden Future Singularities

Understand

Sudden singularities occur in FRW spacetimes when the scale factor remains finite and different from zero while some of its derivatives diverge.

• After proper rescaling, the scale factor close to such a singularity at $t=0$ takes the form $a(t)=1+ c |t|^\eta$ (where $c$ and $\eta$ are parameters and $\eta\geq 0$).
• We investigate analytically and numerically the geodesics of free and gravitationally bound particles through such sudden singularities.
• We find that even though free particle geodesics go through sudden singularities for all $\eta\geq 0$, bound systems get dissociated for a wide range of the parameter $c$.