Related papers: When do real observers resolve de Sitter's imagina…
We investigate the entropy dynamics of de Sitter spacetime during the inflationary phase. The cosmological horizon in de Sitter spacetime, which limits the causally accessible region for an observer, exhibits thermal properties similar to a…
The dimension of the Hilbert space of a quantum gravitational system can be written formally as a path integral partition function over Lorentzian metrics. We implement this in a 2+1 dimensional simplicial minisuperspace model in which the…
We investigate the possibility that, in a combined theory of quantum mechanics and gravity, de Sitter space is described by finitely many states. The notion of observer complementarity, which states that each observer has complete but…
The two-point correlation function of a massive field $\langle\chi(\tau)\chi(0)\rangle$, measured along an observer's worldline in de Sitter (dS), decays exponentially as $\tau \to \infty$. Meanwhile, every dS observer is surrounded by a…
Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes have two horizons that are at different temperatures for generic values of the black hole mass. Since the horizons are out of equilibrium the solutions do not admit a smooth Euclidean continuation and it…
We consider the quantum mechanical description of the de Sitter static patch in three-dimensional general relativity. We consider a Lorentzian path integral that conjecturally computes the Fourier transform of the spectrum of the static…
The de Sitter (dS) entropy bound gives the maximal number of e-folds that non-eternal inflation can last before violating the thermodynamical interpretation of dS space. This semiclassical argument is the analogue, for dS space, of the…
Quantum gravity in a closed universe faces two a priori distinct yet seemingly related issues: the problem of time and the fact that its Hilbert space dimension is one. Both have been argued to be resolvable by formulating physics relative…
The gravitational path integral suggests a striking result: the Hilbert space of closed universes in each superselection sector, a so-called $\alpha$-sector, is one-dimensional. We develop an abstract formalism encapsulating recent…
The one-loop Euclidean partition function on the sphere is known to exhibit a nontrivial phase for massless fields of spin greater than one. Such a phase appears to be in tension with a state counting interpretation of the partition…
The long wavelength physics in a de Sitter region depends on the initial quantum state. While such long wavelength physics is under control for massive fields near the Hartle-Hawking vacuum state, such initial states make unnatural…
We construct an infinite family of semiclassical de Sitter (dS) microstates, realized as backreacted geometries of dS spacetime with a constant tension thin-shell brane located outside the dS event horizon. We further show that wormhole…
Complex states of quantum gravity in flat and AdS gravity can have features that are inaccessible to classical asymptotic observers. The missing information appears to such observers to be hidden behind a horizon or in a baby universe. Here…
In an inflationary regime driven by a free massive inflaton we derive within a genuinely gauge invariant approach the backreaction effects due to long wavelength scalar fluctuations on the effective Hubble factor and equation of state with…
The information loss paradox associated with black hole Hawking evaporation is an unresolved problem in modern theoretical physics. In this paper, we revisit the entanglement entropy via the Euclidean path integral (EPI) of the quantum…
In this paper we show that the entropy of de Sitter space with a black hole in arbitrary dimension can be understood using a modified Cardy-Verlinde entropy formula. We also comment on the observer dependence of the de Sitter entropy.
In this short note, we review some recent progress in understanding the 1-loop corrections to the Gibbons-Hawking entropy, which amounts to studying free fields on the de Sitter static patch and the round sphere. After briefly surveying the…
We show that in any model of non-eternal inflation satisfying the null energy condition, the area of the de Sitter horizon increases by at least one Planck unit in each inflationary e-folding. This observation gives an operational meaning…
Effective field theories (EFTs) provide a powerful framework to parametrise unknown aspects of possible ultraviolet (UV) physics. For scalar fields in de Sitter space, however, new emergent phenomena can arise when the cut-off scale of the…
One of the fundamental problems in quantum gravity is to describe the experience of a gravitating observer in generic spacetimes. In this paper, we develop a framework for describing non-perturbative physics relative to an observer using…