English

Boundary definition of a multiverse measure

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-03-17 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We propose to regulate the infinities of eternal inflation by relating a late time cut-off in the bulk to a short distance cut-off on the future boundary. The light-cone time of an event is defined in terms of the volume of its future light-cone on the boundary. We seek an intrinsic definition of boundary volumes that makes no reference to bulk structures. This requires taming the fractal geometry of the future boundary, and lifting the ambiguity of the conformal factor. We propose to work in the conformal frame in which the boundary Ricci scalar is constant. We explore this proposal in the FRW approximation for bubble universes. Remarkably, we find that the future boundary becomes a round three-sphere, with smooth metric on all scales. Our cut-off yields the same relative probabilities as a previous proposal that defined boundary volumes by projection into the bulk along timelike geodesics. Moreover, it is equivalent to an ensemble of causal patches defined without reference to bulk geodesics. It thus yields a holographically motivated and phenomenologically successful measure for eternal inflation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1005.2783,
  title  = {Boundary definition of a multiverse measure},
  author = {Raphael Bousso and Ben Freivogel and Stefan Leichenauer and Vladimir Rosenhaus},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1005.2783},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

39 pages, 4 figures; v2: minor corrections