Related papers: Tunneling without barriers with gravity
We show that the instability of the singular Vilenkin instanton describing the creation of an open universe can be avoided using, instead of a minimally coupled scalar field, an axionic massless scalar field which gives rise to the…
The application of quantum theory to gravity is beset with many technical and conceptual problems. After a short tour d'horizon of recent attempts to master those problems by the introduction of new approaches, we show that the aim, a…
Instantons in massless theories do not carry over to massive theories due to Derrick's theorem. This theorem can, however, be circumvented, if a constraint that restricts the scale of the instanton is imposed on the theory. Constrained…
The quantum decay of a metastable vacuum is exponentially suppressed by a tunneling action that can be calculated in the semi-classical approximation as the Euclidean action of a bounce that interpolates between the false and true phases.…
We study the geometry of Euclidean instantons in loop quantum cosmology (LQC) such as those relevant for the no-boundary proposal. Confining ourselves to the simplest case of a cosmological constant in minisuperspace cosmologies, we analyze…
A 5-dimensional Einstein spacetime with (non)vanishing cosmological constant is analyzed in detail. The metric is in close analogy with the 4-dimensional massless uncharged C-metric in many aspects. The coordinate system, horizons and…
The role of instantons in describing non-perturbative aspects of globally supersymmetric gauge theories is reviewed. The cases of theories with N=1, N=2 and N=4 supersymmetry are discussed. Special attention is devoted to the intriguing…
The Planck scale is usually believed to be an unpassable wall. Putting a cutoff there and thinking of it as a quantized spacetime entity shows that. However, this is exactly the cause of many problems in quantum gravity. The cosmological…
The aim of this memoir for "Habilitation \`a Diriger des Recherches" is to present quantum geometric and algebraic aspects of supersymmetric gauge theory, which emerge from non-perturbative nature of the vacuum structure induced by…
No-boundary instantons and Euclidean "wineglass" wormholes have both been proposed as providing suitable initial conditions for the current expanding phase of our universe, and in particular for providing conditions that are favorable to an…
We describe a new tunneling solution for the decay of a cosmic string into a burst of gravitational waves. We find the relevant instanton and compute the tunneling rate. Locally, our solution is just an analytic continuation of the Kerr…
A gravitational instanton is found that can tunnel into a new more stable vacuum phase where diffeomorphism invariance is broken and pitchfork bifurcations develop. This tunnelling process involves a double sphaleron-like transition which…
Using the instanton representation method, we re-construct graviton solutions about DeSitter spacetime. We have used this example as a testing arena to expose the internal structure of the method and to establish that it works for known…
The positive energy theorem precludes the possibility of Minkowski flat space decaying by any mechanism. In certain circumstances, however, large quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field could arise---not only at the Planck scale,…
We argue that in the presence of instanton-like singularities, the existence of cosmological horizons can become frame-dependent, ie. a horizon which appears in Einstein frame may not appear in string frame. We speculate on the relation…
We investigate, from a spacetime perspective, some aspects of Horowitz's recent conjecture that black strings may catalyze the decay of Kaluza-Klein spacetimes into a bubble of nothing. We identify classical configurations that interpolate…
Gravity can arise in a conventional non-Abelian gauge theory in which a specific phenomenon takes place. Suppose there is a condensation of polarized instantons and antiinstantons in the vacuum state. Then the excitations of the gauge field…
This is a review of gravitational instantons -- solutions to Riemannian Einstein or Einstein-Maxwell equations in four dimensions which yield complete metrics on non-compact four-manifolds, and which asymptotically `look like' flat space.…
D-brane instantons can perturb the quantum field theories on space-time filling D-branes by interesting operators. In some cases, these D-brane instantons are novel "stringy" effects (not interpretable directly as instanton effects in the…
A constraint of vanishing energy-momentum tensor is motivated by a variety of perspectives on quantum gravity. We demonstrate in a concrete example how this constraint leads to a metric-independent theory in which quantum gravity emerges as…