Conformal Vacuum of dS$_4\times \mathbb R$ with Oppositely Oriented Boundaries
High Energy Physics - Theory
2026-03-16 v1
Abstract
We derive a dS quotient spacetime that is asymptotically dS, where the quotient makes its past boundary oppositely oriented relative to its future boundary. This introduces a lightlike singularity that severs the antipodes of the spacetime and simplifies its global vacuum to a trivial product on antipodal static patches. We show that this state is conformal to the vacuum of an infinite orientable cover of a non-orientable AdS spacetime with an S bundle. The vacuum's separability extends to its holographic dual, which is a product of Cardy states. We find that this candidate dS vacuum state is perturbatively unstable within quantum gravity due to a vanishing Hagedorn temperature.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.13145,
title = {Conformal Vacuum of dS$_4\times \mathbb R$ with Oppositely Oriented Boundaries},
author = {Lucas K. Kovalsky and Shivesh Pathak and Kyle Ritchie},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.13145},
year = {2026}
}