English

No-boundary solutions are robust to quantum gravity corrections

High Energy Physics - Theory 2021-02-12 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

The no-boundary proposal is a theory of the initial conditions of the universe formulated in semi-classical gravity, and relying on the existence of regular (complex) solutions of the equations of motion. We show by explicit computation that regular no-boundary solutions are modified, but not destroyed, upon inclusion of expected quantum gravity corrections that involve higher powers of the Riemann tensor as well as covariant derivatives thereof. We illustrate our results with examples drawn from string theory. Our findings provide a crucial self-consistency test of the no-boundary framework.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2008.04134,
  title  = {No-boundary solutions are robust to quantum gravity corrections},
  author = {Caroline Jonas and Jean-Luc Lehners},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.04134},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

39 pages, no figure, v2: matches the published version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:45:03.212Z