Statistical Entropy of De Sitter Space
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2009-10-31 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
Quantum gravity in 2+1 dimensions with a positive cosmological constant can be represented as an SL(2,C) Chern-Simons gauge theory. The symmetric vacuum of this theory is a degenerate configuration for which the gauge fields and spacetime metric vanish, while de Sitter space corresponds to a highly excited thermal state. Carlip's approach to black hole entropy can be adapted in this context to determine the statistical entropy of de Sitter space. We find that it equals one-quarter the area of the de Sitter horizon, in agreement with the semiclassical formula.
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9801096,
title = {Statistical Entropy of De Sitter Space},
author = {Juan M. Maldacena and Andrew Strominger},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9801096},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
5 pages, harvmac. v2: reference added