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Lorentzian Quantum Cosmology

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arxiv 1703.02076 v1 pith:ZXQ77YQW submitted 2017-03-06 hep-th gr-qc

classification hep-thgr-qc
keywords integralquantumpathcomplexconvergentcosmologyeuclideaninitial
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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We argue that the Lorentzian path integral is a better starting point for quantum cosmology than the Euclidean version. In particular, we revisit the mini-superspace calculation of the Feynman path integral for quantum gravity with a positive cosmological constant. Instead of rotating to Euclidean time, we deform the contour of integration over metrics into the complex plane, exploiting Picard-Lefschetz theory to transform the path integral from a conditionally convergent integral into an absolutely convergent one. We show that this procedure unambiguously determines which semiclassical saddle point solutions are relevant to the quantum mechanical amplitude. Imposing "no-boundary" initial conditions, i.e., restricting attention to regular, complex metrics with no initial boundary, we find that the dominant saddle contributes a semiclassical exponential factor which is precisely the {\it inverse} of the famous Hartle-Hawking result.

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Cited by 13 Pith papers

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