Related papers: Gravitational Instantons from Minimal Surfaces
We find constrained instantons in Einstein gravity with and without a cosmological constant. These configurations are not saddle points of the Einstein-Hilbert action, yet they contribute to non-perturbative processes in quantum gravity. In…
Supersymmetric instanton solutions in four dimensional Euclidean ungauged Einstein-Maxwell theory are analysed and classified according to the fraction of supersymmetry they preserve, using spinorial geometry techniques.
We study various aspects of four dimensional Einstein-Maxwell multicentred gravitational instantons. These are half-BPS Riemannian backgrounds of minimal N=2 supergravity, asymptotic to R^4, R^3 x S^1 or AdS_2 x S^2. Unlike for the…
A classification result for Ricci-flat anti-self-dual asymptotically locally Euclidean 4-manifolds is obtained: they are either hyperk\"ahler (one of the gravitational instantons classified by Kronheimer), or they are a cyclic quotient of a…
We argue that the electromagnetic $\theta$-term is a physical parameter of the Standard Model coupled to gravity. Specifically, in the context of 4-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell theory we show that there exist Euclidean field configurations…
We investigate the role of gauge and gravitational instantons in the context of the Swampland program. Our focus is on the global symmetry breaking they induce, especially in the presence of fermions. We first recall and make more precise…
We provide an exhaustive classification of self-dual four-dimensional gravitational instantons foliated with three-dimensional homogeneous spaces, i.e. homogeneous self-dual metrics on four-dimensional Euclidean spaces admitting a Bianchi…
We consider instanton solutions of Euclidean Horava-Lifshitz gravity in four dimensions satisfying the detailed balance condition. They are described by geometric flows in three dimensions driven by certain combinations of the Cotton and…
In this paper we quantize the Klein--Gordon scalar field coupled to gravity in the instanton representation for spatially homogeneous variables. The construction provides a well-defined Hilbert space of states for generic self-interaction…
We construct the explicit form of three almost complex structures that a Riemannian manifold with self-dual curvature admits and show that their Nijenhuis tensors vanish so that they are integrable. This proves that gravitational instantons…
We compute the spectrum of primordial gravitational wave perturbations in open de Sitter spacetime. The background spacetime is taken to be the continuation of an O(5) symmetric instanton saddle point of the Euclidean no boundary path…
In this paper, we study Einstein gravity with a minimally coupled scalar field accompanied with a potential, assuming an O(4) symmetric metric ansatz. We call an Euclidean instanton is to be an oscillating instanton, if there exists a point…
We consider gauged Wess-Zumino models based on the non compact group $SU(2,1)$. It is shown that by vector gauging the maximal compact subgroup $U(2)$ the resulting backgrounds obey the gravity-dilaton one loop string vacuum equations of…
We give a complete classification of supersymmetric gravitational instantons in Euclidean N=2 supergravity coupled to vector multiplets. An interesting class of solutions is found which corresponds to the Euclidean analogue of stationary…
A topological version of four-dimensional (Euclidean) Einstein gravity which we propose regards anti-self-dual 2-forms and an anti-self-dual part of the frame connections as fundamental fields. The theory describes the moduli spaces of…
We identify a new class of UV-complete instanton solutions that describe the false vacuum\- decay of a real scalar field in a particular curved spacetime background. To this end, we consider a simple scalar theory with a Coleman potential…
Within the context of finding the initial conditions of the universe we consider gravitational instantons falling into the Bianchi IX classification. That is, a Euclidean four-manifold with a metric that satisfies Einstein's equations with…
Axions play a central role in inflationary model building and other cosmological applications. This is mainly due to their flat potential, which is protected by a global shift symmetry. However, quantum gravity is known to break global…
We demonstrate the existence of a broad class of non-perturbative fermionic solutions to the Euclidean supergravity equations of motion, which are half-BPS and nonsingular, possess zero action, and obey an (anti)self-duality condition.…
The instanton vacuum provides an effective description of chiral symmetry breaking by local topological fluctuations of the gauge fields, as observed in lattice QCD simulations. The resulting effective dynamics at momenta below $1/\bar\rho…