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Is the total enthalpy of the universe constant?

It would seem like the answer would have to be yes, since (1) enthalpy change represents the heat exchange between the system and the surroundings, and there is nothing "outside" the universe, and (2) in the equation $H = U + PV$, the matter in the universe is surrounded by a vacuum so $P = 0$ and that term disappears, so the enthalpy is just the internal energy $U$ of the universe, which never changes by the law of conservation of energy.

But I can't find a reliable source confirming this explicitly. (The only place I can even find this question posted, is on Quora:
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-total-enthalpy-of-the-universe-constant-Is-the-sum-of-the-changes-in-the-enthalpies-of-system-and-surroundings-equals-zero
and the only yes/no answer says: "No, if this was the case, our school books would have ended up with another law of conservation of enthalpy", and that's why I don't read Quora.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Even the total energy of the universe is not necessarily constant (see, e.g. here) so the enthalpy wouldn't be (I'm not even sure what the $PV$ term would represent in this context anyway). $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Commented Jul 4, 2018 at 18:35
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    $\begingroup$ I'm closing this as a duplicate even though it is not an exact duplicate. The issue is that the total enthalpy of the universe is not a well-defined quantity. $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic ♦
    Commented Jul 4, 2018 at 19:13

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Enthalpy is just a legendre transformation of the internal energy from a dependence in volume to a dependence in pressure.

It's still energy, so you dont 'need' conservation of enthalpy, as this is also included in conservation of energy.

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