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The Wave Function of Vasiliev's Universe - A Few Slices Thereof

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7 Pith papers citing it
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abstract

We study the partition function of the free Sp(N) conformal field theory recently conjectured to be dual to asymptotically de Sitter higher-spin gravity in four-dimensions. We compute the partition function of this CFT on a round sphere as a function of a finite mass deformation, on a squashed sphere as a function of the squashing parameter, and on an S2xS1 geometry as a function of the relative size of S2 and S1. We find that the partition function is divergent at large negative mass in the first case, and for small $S^1$ in the third case. It is globally peaked at zero squashing in the second case. Through the duality this partition function contains information about the wave function of the universe. We show that the divergence at small S1 occurs also in Einstein gravity if certain complex solutions are included, but the divergence in the mass parameter is new. We suggest an interpretation for this divergence as indicating an instability of de Sitter space in higher spin gravity, consistent with general arguments that de Sitter space cannot be stable in quantum gravity.

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hep-th 7

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2026 5 2025 2

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representative citing papers

CFTs on Squashed Spheres and the Thermal Effective Action

hep-th · 2026-06-29 · unverdicted · novelty 7.0

Derives universal quadratic response of 3D CFT free energy to S^3 squashing proportional to c_T and constructs thermal effective action for high-T Seifert manifolds with explicit Wilson coefficients.

dS$^4$ Metamorphosis

hep-th · 2026-02-23 · conditional · novelty 7.0

Higher spin gravity path integral on S^4 glues to an Sp(N) or superconformal S^3 boundary theory, giving leading contribution 2^N with one-loop cancellations.

M\"obius randomness in the Hartle-Hawking state

hep-th · 2025-05-05 · unverdicted · novelty 7.0

The Hartle-Hawking state for toroidal quantum cosmologies is expressed in the Langlands decomposition as a sum over zeta zeros whose near-singularity dynamics follow the Hilbert-Pólya Hamiltonian and as a Möbius average of CFT partition functions.

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