Wave function of the Universe as a sum over eventually inflating universes
Abstract
We consider a proposal to define the wave function of the Universe as a sum over spacetimes that eventually inflate. In the minisuperspace model, we explicitly show that a simple family of initial conditions, parametrized by a positive real number , can be imposed to realise this prescription. The resulting wave function is found to be proportional to the Hartle-Hawking wave function and its dependence on is only through an overall phase factor. Motivated by this observation, we ask whether it is possible to analytically extend to an extended region in complex plane, while retaining the Hartle-Hawking form of the wave function. We use the condition for convergence of path integral and a recent theorem due to Kontsevich and Segal, further extended by Witten, to explicitly find . Interestingly, a special point on the boundary of recovers the exact no-boundary wave function. Following that, we show that our prescription leads to a family of quantum states for the perturbations, which give rise to scale-invariant power spectra. If we demand, as an extra ingredient to our prescription, a matching condition at the "no-boundary point" in , we converge on a unique quantum state for the perturbations.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2112.04522,
title = {Wave function of the Universe as a sum over eventually inflating universes},
author = {Karthik Rajeev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.04522},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
16 pages, 3 figures, published version