Related papers: Resurgence theory, ghost-instantons, and analytic …
We explore the nonlinear dynamics of classical field theories containing ghost degrees of freedom, focusing on two coupled scalar fields with opposite kinetic terms in (1+1) and (2+1) dimensional Minkowski spacetime. Using a spacetime…
We use Euclidean path integrals to explore the set of bulk asymptotically AdS spacetimes with good CFT duals. We consider simple bottom-up models of bulk physics defined by Einstein-Hilbert gravity coupled to thin domain walls and restrict…
A series of informal seminars at graduate-student level on the subject of coupling dependence in quantum field theory, with an elementary introduction to the notion of resurgent function that forms the appropriate framework for the coupling…
While there does not at this time exist a complete canonical theory of full 3+1 quantum gravity, there does appear to be a satisfactory canonical quantization of minisuperspace models. The method requires no `choice of time variable' and…
As shown in previous work, there is a well-defined nonperturbative gravitational path integral including an explicit sum over topologies in the setting of Causal Dynamical Triangulations in two dimensions. In this paper we derive a complete…
We study the path-integral formalism in the imaginary-time to show its validity in a case with a metastable ground state. The well-known method based on the bounce solution leads to the imaginary part of the energy even for a state that is…
We show that the semi-classical analysis of generic Euclidean path integrals necessarily requires complexification of the action and measure, and consideration of complex saddle solutions. We demonstrate that complex saddle points have a…
The quantum theory of cosmological perturbations in single field inflation is formulated in terms of a path integral. Starting from a canonical formulation, we show how the free propagators can be obtained from the well known…
We study doubly-periodic instantons, i.e. instantons on the product of a 1-dimensional complex torus T with a complex line C, with quadratic curvature decay. We determine the asymptotic behaviour of these instantons, constructing new…
We consider 5d $\mathcal{N}=1$ SU(2) super Yang-Mills theory on $X\times S^1$, with $X$ a closed smooth four-manifold. A partial topological twisting along $X$ renders the theory formally independent of the metric on $X$. The theory depends…
The Feynman Path Integral is extended in order to capture all solutions of a quantum field theory. This is done via a choice of appropriate integration cycles, parametrized by M in SL(2,C), i.e., the space of allowed integration cycles is…
This paper studies the decay of a large, closed domain wall in a closed universe. Such walls can form in the presence of a broken, discrete symmetry. We introduce a novel process of quantum decay for such a wall, in which the vacuum…
We explain how a vanishing, or truncated, perturbative expansion, such as often arises in semi-classically tractable supersymmetric theories, can nevertheless be related to fluctuations about non-perturbative sectors via resurgence. We also…
Complex (semi-)classical paths, or instantons, form an integral part of our understanding of quantum physics. Whereas real classical paths describe classically allowed transitions in the real-time Feynman path integral, classically…
We demonstrate the existence of hidden topological angles (HTAs) in a large class of quantum field theories and quantum mechanical systems. HTAs are distinct from theta-parameters in the lagrangian. They arise as invariant angle associated…
The path integral over Euclidean geometries for the recently suggested density matrix of the Universe is shown to describe a microcanonical ensemble in quantum cosmology. This ensemble corresponds to a uniform (weight one) distribution in…
We study finite-dimensional integrals in a way that elucidates the mathematical meaning behind the formal manipulations of path integrals occurring in quantum field theory. This involves a proper understanding of how Wick's theorem allows…
We study patterns of quantum entanglement in systems of spins and ghost-spins regarding them as simple quantum mechanical toy models for theories containing negative norm states. We define a single ghost-spin as in arXiv:1602.06505 [hep-th]…
A method to obtain all-order asymptotic results for the coefficients of perturbative expansions in zero-dimensional quantum field is described. The focus is on the enumeration of the number of skeleton or primitive diagrams of a certain QFT…
We investigate false vacuum decay catalysed by black holes under the influence of the higher order Gauss-Bonnet term. We study both bubble nucleation and Hawking-Moss types of phase transition in arbitrary dimension. The equations of motion…