We show that the dynamical realization of the acceleration-enlarged Galilean symmetry leads to nonrelativistic massless particles whose energy may be negative. We present a fluid mechanical generalisation of this observation and use it to contruct a nonrelativistic two-dimensional fluid model which possesses solutions with a negative energy density. Considering this model as describing dark energy in a baby universe (two space dimensions) we show that its negative energy density leads to a repulsive gravitational interaction of the fluid with any test body.
The creation of spacetimes with horizons is discussed, focussing on baby universes and black holes as examples. There is a complex interplay of quantum theory and General Relativity in both cases, leading to consequences for the future of the universe and the information loss paradox, and to a deeper understanding of quantum gravity.
Under certain circumstances, the collision of magnetic monopoles, topologically locked-in regions of false vacuum, leads to topological inflation and the creation of baby universes. The future evolution of initial data represented by the two incoming monopoles may contain a timelike singularity but this need not be the case. We discuss the global structure of the spacetime associated with monopole collisions and also that of topological inflation. We suggest that topological inflation within magnetic monopoles leads to an eternally reproducing universe.
We reconsider the Coleman's mechanism that solves the Cosmological Constant Problem by the baby universes. We use the Lorentzian path integral and allow each universe has a different effective field theory and a vacuum. By using the probability distribution of coupling constants, it is shown that the cosmological constant of our universe does not necessary become small due to the effects of other universes.
We apply the recently proposed transfer matrix formalism to 2-dimensional quantum gravity coupled to $(2, 2k-1)$ minimal models. We find that the propagation of a parent universe in geodesic (Euclidean) time is accompanied by continual emission of baby universes and derive a distribution function describing their sizes. The $k\to \infty~ (c\to -\infty)$ limit is generally thought to correspond to classical geometry, and we indeed find a classical peak in the universe distribution function. However, we also observe dramatic quantum effects associated with baby universes at finite length scales.
We study a partially fine-grained description of an evaporating black hole by introducing an open baby universe with a boundary. Since the Page's calculation of the entropy of Hawking radiation involves an ensemble average over a class of states, one can formally obtain a fine-grained state by purifying this setup. For AdS black holes with a holographic dual, this purification amounts to introducing an additional boundary (i.e., baby universe) and then connecting it to the original black hole through an Einstein-Rosen bridge. We uncover several details of this setup. As applications, we briefl…
We study quantum entanglements of baby universes which appear in non-perturbative corrections to the OSV formula for the entropy of extremal black holes in Type IIA string theory compactified on the local Calabi-Yau manifold defined as a rank 2 vector bundle over an arbitrary genus G Riemann surface. This generalizes the result for G=1 in hep-th/0504221. Non-perturbative terms can be organized into a sum over contributions from baby universes, and the total wave-function is their coherent superposition in the third quantized Hilbert space. We find that half of the universes preserve one set of…
The behaviour of baby universes has been an important ingredient in understanding and quantifying non-critical string theory or, equivalently, models of two-dimensional Euclidean quantum gravity coupled to matter. Within a regularized description based on dynamical triangulations, we amend an earlier conjecture by Jain and Mathur on the scaling behaviour of genus-$g$ surfaces containing particular baby universe `necks', and perform a nontrivial numerical check on our improved conjecture.
We propose a novel construction of a third quantised baby universe Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}_{BU}$ for the quantum gravity path integral. In contrast to the original description of $α$-parameters, both the bulk and boundary microscopic parameters are fixed in our proposal. Wormholes and baby universes appear due to refined observables, of the boundary dual quantum field theories, that crucially involve the space of representations of the gauge group. Irreducible representations, on which the path integral factorises, give rise to field theoretic superselection sectors and replace the $α$ stat…
We measure the fractal structure of four dimensional simplicial quantum gravity by identifying so-called baby universes. This allows an easy determination of the critical exponent $\g$ connected to the entropy of four-dimensional manifolds.
We explore a simple toy model of interacting universes to establish that a small baby universe could become large ($\gg$ Planck length) if a third quantization mechanism is taken into account.
We argue that the holographic description of four-dimensional BPS black holes naturally includes multi-center solutions. This suggests that the holographic dual to the gauge theory is not a single AdS_2 times S^2 but a coherent ensemble of them. We verify this in a particular class of examples, where the two-dimensional Yang-Mills theory gives a holographic description of the black holes obtained by branes wrapping Calabi-Yau cycles. Using the free fermionic formulation, we show that O(e^{-N}) non-perturbative effects entangle the two Fermi surfaces. In an Euclidean description, the wave-funct…
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano - Bicocca（米兰比可卡大学物理系）；INFN, sezione di Milano-Bicocca（意大利国家核物理研究所米兰-比可卡分部）；Institute for Theoretical Physics（理论物理研究所）
Can a late-time cosmological model based on baby universe absorption explain the z-variation of w?
The Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen University（哥本哈根大学尼尔斯·玻尔研究所）；Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics (IMAPP) Radbaud University Nijmegen（奈梅亨拉德堡德大学数学、天体物理与粒子物理研究所）；Dept. of Physics, High Energy Theory Group, Institute of Science Tokyo（东京科学大学物理系高能理论组）
We formulate the baby universe construction rigorously by giving a primordial role to the algebra of observables of quantum gravity rather than the Hilbert space. Utilizing diffeomorphism invariance, we study baby universe creation and annihilation via change in topology. We then construct the algebra of boundary observables for holographic theories and show that it enhances to contain an 'extra' Abelian tensor factor to describe the bulk in the quantum regime; via the gravitational path integral we realize this extra tensor factor, at the level of the Hilbert space, in the context of the GNS …
We reformulate recent insights into black hole information in a manner emphasizing operationally-defined notions of entropy, Lorentz-signature descriptions, and asymptotically flat spacetimes. With the help of replica wormholes, we find that experiments of asymptotic observers are consistent with black holes as unitary quantum systems, with density of states given by the Bekenstein-Hawking formula. However, this comes at the cost of superselection sectors associated with the state of baby universes. Spacetimes studied by Polchinski and Strominger in 1994 provide a simple illustration of the as…
We study $\widehat{\text{CGHS}}$ gravity, a variant of the matterless Callan-Giddings-Harvey-Strominger model. We show that it describes a universal sector of the near horizon perturbations of non-extremal black holes in higher dimensions. In many respects this theory can be viewed as a flat space analog of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. The result for the Euclidean path integral implies that $\widehat{\text{CGHS}}$ is dual to a Gaussian ensemble that we describe in detail. The simplicity of this theory allows us to compute exact quantities such as the quenched free energy and provides a useful pl…
We discuss the essential features of baby-universe production, starting from a description of black holes and wormholes, in terms of the causal structure of spacetime, and following a qualitative review of the connection between vacuum decay and inflation in early universe cosmology. Related open questions are also addressed, especially in connection with the possibility that baby universes could be formed within our present universe - either in a future particle accelerator, or spontaneously.
Quantum black holes are described by a large number of macroscopically indistinguishable microstates. Correlation functions of fields outside the horizon at long time separation probe this indistinguishability. The simplest of these, the thermal two-point function, oscillates erratically around a nonperturbatively small average "ramp" and "plateau" after an initial period of decay; these non-decaying averaged features are signatures of the discreteness of the black hole spectrum. For a theory described by an ensemble of Hamiltonians, the two-point function follows this averaged behavior. In th…
String tension fundamentally determines the properties of strings; yet its value is often assigned arbitrarily, creating a fine-tuning problem. We describe a mechanism for dynamically generating string tension in a flat or almost flat spacetime, using the modified measures formalism, which in turn naturally generates a new type of stringy brane-world scenario. Such a scenario allows strings to achieve near infinite tension confining the strings to two very close expanding surfaces, but the infinite tensions also threatens to distort the near-flat embedding spacetime through large back reaction…
Can we live in a baby universe formed by a delayed first-order phase transition?
School of Physics, Peking University（北京大学物理学院）；Center for High Energy Physics, Peking University（北京大学高能物理中心）；School of Physics, Zhengzhou University（郑州大学物理学院）；School of Physics, Beihang University（北京航空航天大学物理学院）
A baby-universe model of cosmic inflation is analyzed using quantum Darwinism. In this model cosmic inflation can be approximated as Brownian motion of a quantum field, and quantum Darwinism implies that decoherence is the result of quantum Brownian motion of the wave function. The quantum Darwinism approach to decoherence in the baby-universe cosmic-inflation model yields the decoherence times of the baby-universes. The result is the equation relating the baby-universe's decoherence time with the Hubble parameter. A brief discussion of the relation between Darwinism and determinism is provide…
The validity of the Coleman mechanism, which automatically tunes the fundamental constants, is examined in two-dimensional and four-dimensional quantum gravity theories. First, we consider two-dimensional Euclidean quantum gravity on orientable closed manifolds coupled to conformal matter of central charge $c \leq1$. The proper time Hamiltonian of this system is known to be written as a field theory of noncritical strings, which can also be viewed as a third quantization in two dimensions. By directly counting the number of random surfaces with various topologies, we find that the contribution…
General relativity predicts that the inner horizon of an astronomically realistic rotating black hole is subject to the mass inflation instability. The inflationary instability acts like a gravity-powered particle accelerator of extraordinary power, accelerating accreted streams of particles along the principal outgoing and ingoing null directions at the inner horizon to collision energies that would, if nothing intervened, typically exceed exponentially the Planck energy. The inflationary instability is fueled by ongoing accretion, and is occurring inevitably in essentially every black hole i…
Black hole thermodynamics suggests that, in order to describe the physics of distant observers, one may model a black hole as a standard quantum system with density of states set by the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy $S_\mathrm{BH}$. This idea has long been considered to be in strong tension with Hawking's prediction that radiation from black holes is nearly thermal, and with low-energy gravity more generally. But the past two years have shown that low-energy gravity does offer a self-consistent description of black hole evaporation consistent with the above idea, and which in particular reproduce…
The quantum gravity path integral involves a sum over topologies that invites comparisons to worldsheet string theory and to Feynman diagrams of quantum field theory. However, the latter are naturally associated with the non-abelian algebra of quantum fields, while the former has been argued to define an abelian algebra of superselected observables associated with partition-function-like quantities at an asymptotic boundary. We resolve this apparent tension by pointing out a variety of discrete choices that must be made in constructing a Hilbert space from such path integrals, and arguing that…
We investigate the decay of metastable de Sitter, Minkowski and anti-de Sitter vacua catalyzed by a black hole and a cloud of strings. We apply the method to the creation of the four dimensional bubble universe in the five dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime recently proposed by Banerjee, Danielsson, Dibitetto, Giri and Schillo. We study the bounce action for the creation and find that the bubble with very small cosmological constant, of order $Λ^{(4)}/M^2_4 \sim 10^{-120}$, is favored by the catalysis by assuming appropriate mass scales of the black hole and the cloud of strings to reproduce…
In the 1980's, work by Coleman and by Giddings and Strominger linked the physics of spacetime wormholes to `baby universes' and an ensemble of theories. We revisit such ideas, using features associated with a negative cosmological constant and asymptotically AdS boundaries to strengthen the results, introduce a change in perspective, and connect with recent replica wormhole discussions of the Page curve. A key new feature is an emphasis on the role of null states. We explore this structure in detail in simple topological models of the bulk that allow us to compute the full spectrum of associat…
We present a dynamical toy model for an expanding universe inside a black hole. The model is built by matching a spherically symmetric collapsing matter cloud to an expanding Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe through a phase transition that occurs in the quantum-gravity dominated region, here modeled with semi-classical corrections at high density. The matching is performed on a space-like hyper-surface identified by the co-moving time at which quantum-gravity induced effects halt collapse. The purpose of the model is to suggest a possible reconciliation between the observation that black ho…
We propose a solution of the naturalness problem in the context of the multiverse wavefunction without the anthropic argument. If we include microscopic wormhole configurations in the path integral, the wave function becomes a superposition of universes with various values of the coupling constants such as the cosmological constant, the parameters in the Higgs potential, and so on. We analyze the quantum state of the multiverse, and evaluate the density matrix of one universe. We show that the coupling constants induced by the wormholes are fixed in such a way that the density matrix is maximi…
Condensed matter black hole analogues may provide guidance in grappling with difficult questions about the role of short distance physics in the Hawking effect. These questions bear on the very existence of Hawking radiation, the correlations it may or may not carry, the nature of black hole entropy, and the possible loss of information when a black hole evaporates. We describe a model of black hole formation and evaporation and the loss of information to a disconnected universe in a thin film of 3He-A, and we explain why the existence of Hawking radiation has not yet been demonstrated in this…
The dynamics of baby universes which are branched off in pairs from a large universe and whose respective members are entangled to each other has been studied in quantum gravity and string theory. It is shown that the probability measure for such pairs essentially keeps its Planckian form when one of their two members is trapped by a Lorentzian tunnel and travels through it into another large universe, so that the two baby universes of the pairs preserve their mutual entanglement even when they are going to be finally branched in distinct large universes. The conclusion is thus drawn that big …
In this work, we extend a 2d topological gravity model of Marolf and Maxfield to have as its bulk action any open/closed TQFT obeying Atiyah's axioms. The holographic duals of these topological gravity models are ensembles of 1d topological theories with random dimension. Specifically, we find that the TQFT Hilbert space splits into sectors, between which correlators of boundary observables factorize, and that the corresponding sectors of the boundary theory have dimensions independently chosen from different Poisson distributions. As a special case, we study in detail the gravity model built …
Baby universes (inflationary or non--inflationary) are regions of spacetime that disconnect from the original ambient spacetime, which we take to be asymptotically flat spacetime. A particular kind of baby universe solution, involving string--like matter, is studied to show that it can be formed by ``investing'' an arbitrarily small amount of energy, i.e. it can appear from an almost flat space at the classical level. Since this possibility has not yet been clearly recognized in the literature, we then discuss in detail its properties, relevance and possible generalizations.
We present Euclidean wormhole solutions describing possible bridges within the multiverse. The study is carried out in the framework of the third quantization. The matter content is modelled through a scalar field which supports the existence of a whole collection of universes. The instanton solutions describe Euclidean solutions that connect baby universes with asymptotically de Sitter universes. We compute the tunnelling probability of these processes. Considering the current bounds on the energy scale of inflation and assuming that all the baby universes are nucleated with the same probabil…
Spacetime wormholes can lead to surprises in black hole physics. We show that a very old black hole can tunnel to a white hole/firewall by emitting a large baby universe. We study the process for a perturbed thermofield double black hole in Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity, using the lowest order (genus one) spacetime wormhole that corresponds to single baby-universe emission. The probability for tunneling to a white hole is proportional to $t^2 e^{-2S}$ where $t$ is the age of the black hole and $S$ is the entropy of one black hole.
We recently formulated a model of the universe based on an underlying W3-symmetry. It allows the creation of the universe from nothing and the creation of baby universes and wormholes for spacetimes of dimension 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10. Here we show that the classical large time and large space limit of these universes is one of exponential fast expansion without the need of a cosmological constant. Under a number of simplifying assumptions our model predicts that w=-1.2 in the case of four-dimensional spacetime. The possibility of obtaining a w-value less than -1 is linked to the ability of our mod…
We argue that an understanding of the Arrow of Time is urgently required if recent string-theoretic ideas about cosmology are to be made to function. In the string Landscape, the nucleation of baby universes is postulated to "populate" the multiverse. Here we argue that baby universes can only have an Arrow if they \emph{inherit} one; the problem of explaining the Arrow is thus reduced to explaining it in the case of the original universe. Motivated by the Ooguri-Vafa-Verlinde formulation of "creation from nothing" in the context of string theory, we propose that the original universe was crea…
The problem of information loss is considered under the assumption that the process of black hole evaporation terminates in the decay of the black hole interior into a baby universe. We show that such theories can be decomposed into superselection sectors labeled by eigenvalues of the third-quantized baby universe field operator, and that scattering is unitary within each superselection sector. This result relies crucially on the quantum-mechanical variability of the decay time. It is further argued that the decay rate in the black hole rest frame is necessarily proportional to $e^{-S_{tot}}$,…
We investigate contributions of spacetime wormholes, describing baby universe emission and absorption, to calculations of entropies and correlation functions, for example those based on the replica method. We find that the rules of the "wormhole calculus," developed in the 1980s, together with standard quantum mechanical prescriptions for computing entropies and correlators, imply definite rules for $\textit{limited}$ patterns of connection between replica factors in simple calculations. These results stand in contrast with assumptions that all topologies connecting replicas should be summed o…
We consider the gravitational field of infinite straight and stationary twisted Baby Skyrmion cosmic string. Using the approximate solution of Einstein equations, it is shown that the internal phase rotation (twist) along the string axis is responsible for a long-range gravitational acceleration resembling that of massive cylindrical shell. We also study the stability and gravitational field of circular loops. When the loop radius becomes comparable with the string width, the rigidity energy tends to stabilize small loops against radial collapse. The nucleon scale-toroidal knot with Hopf charg…
Toward Krylov-based holography in double-scaled SYK
Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology（光州科学技术院）；Instituto de Física Teórica UAM/CSIC（马德里自治大学/西班牙国家科研中心理论物理研究所）；Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics（亚太理论物理中心）；Pohang University of Science and Technology（浦项科技大学）；Research Center for Photon Science Technology, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology（光州科学技术院光子科学与技术研究中心）
Wormholes -- solutions to the euclidean Einstein equations with non-trivial topology -- are usually assumed to make real contributions to amplitudes in quantum gravity. However, we find a negative mode among fluctuations about the Giddings-Strominger wormhole solution. Hence, the wormhole contribution to the euclidean functional integral is argued to be purely imaginary rather than real, which suggests the interpretation of the wormhole as describing the instability of a large universe against the emission of baby universes.
Matter with an equation of state $p=-ρ/3$ may arise in certain scalar field theories, and the energy density of this matter decreases as $a^{-2}$ with the scale factor $a$ of the Universe. In this case, the Universe could be closed but still have a nonrelativistic-matter density $Ω_0<1$. Furthermore, the cosmic microwave background could come from a causally-connected region at the other side of the Universe. This model is currently viable and might be tested by a host of forthcoming observations.
The deformed z=2 Horava-Lifshitz gravity with coupling constant w leads to a nonrelativistic "mixmaster" cosmological model. The potential of theory is given by the sum of IR and UV potentials in the ADM Hamiltonian formalism. It turns out that adding the UV-potential cannot suppress chaotic behaviors existing in the IR-potential.
We study the present, flat isotropic universe in 1/R-modified gravity. We use the Palatini (metric-affine) variational principle and the Einstein (metric-compatible connected) conformal frame. We show that the energy density scaling deviates from the usual scaling for nonrelativistic matter, and the largest deviation occurs in the present epoch. We find that the current deceleration parameter derived from the apparent matter density parameter is consistent with observations. There is also a small overlap between the predicted and observed values for the redshift derivative of the deceleration …
