Towards an Alternative to the Big Bang Theory

In the absence of any astrophysical evidence in favour of big bang origin of the universe and the possible violation of Hawking-Penrose theorem in the state of the early universe, the big bang theory faces a serious challenge. A new cosmological history of the evolution of the universe based on Prigogine’s hypothesis of creation of matter out of gravitational energy is presented. The universe has a non-singular origin, the expansion starting with a random vacuum fluctuation. The universe is regarded as an open thermodynamical system, allowing for irreversible matter creation from gravitational field. The creation of particles induces the expansion of the universe. The entropy thus produced gives rise to a fireball phase, leading to the known thermal history of the universe.