Cosmological Bounces Induced by a Fermion Condensate

We show that it is possible for fermion condensation of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio type to induce a nonsingular bounce that smoothly connects a phase of slow contraction to a phase of expansion. A chiral condensate - a nonzero vacuum expectation value of the spinor bilinear ψ¯ψ - can form spontaneously after a slow contraction phase smooths and flattens the universe and the Ricci curvature exceeds a critical value. In this approach, a high density of spin-aligned free fermions is not required, which avoids the problem of generating a large anisotropy and initiating chaotic mixmaster behavior during the bounce phase.