English

The Wave Function of Quantum de Sitter

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-06-11 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We consider quantum general relativity in three dimensions with a positive cosmological constant. The Hartle-Hawking wave function is computed as a function of metric data at asymptotic future infinity. The analytic continuation from Euclidean Anti-de Sitter space provides a natural integration contour in the space of metrics, allowing us -- with certain assumptions -- to compute the wave function exactly, including both perturbative and non-perturbative effects. The resulting wave function is a non-normalizable function of the conformal structure of future infinity which is infinitely peaked at geometries where I^+ becomes infinitely inhomogeneous. We interpret this as a non-perturbative instability of de Sitter space in three dimensional Einstein gravity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1209.5757,
  title  = {The Wave Function of Quantum de Sitter},
  author = {Alejandra Castro and Alexander Maloney},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.5757},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

20 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:11:08.434Z