Is There Really a de Sitter/CFT Duality

James Lindesay; Leonard Susskind; Lisa Dyson

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Is There Really a de Sitter/CFT Duality

Lisa Dyson, James Lindesay, Leonard Susskind

High Energy Physics - Theory · Submitted 25 Feb 2002

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim We find that dS complementarity precludes the existence of the appropriate limits.

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What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.05 · states limitation 0.52 · human participants 0.01 · controlled comparison 0.02 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.07 · compares with prior results 0.19 · mentions code or data availability 0.01.

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arXiv listing abstract v4. Results and the main claim are underlined; show every role.

In this paper a de Sitter Space version of Black Hole Complementarity is formulated which states that an observer in de Sitter Space describes the surrounding space as a sealed finite temperature cavity bounded by a horizon which allows no loss of information. We then discuss the implications of this for the existence of boundary correlators in the hypothesized dS/cft correspondence. We find that dS complementarity precludes the existence of the appropriate limits. We find that the limits exist only in approximations in which the entropy of the de Sitter Space is infinite. The reason that the correlators exist in quantum field theory in the de Sitter Space background is traced to the fact that horizon entropy is infinite in QFT.

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What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	In this paper a de Sitter Space version of Black Hole Complementarity is formulated which states that an observer in de Sitter Space describes the surrounding space as a sealed finite temperature cavity bounded by a horizon which allows no loss of information.	contribution 0.99	0.79	0.11	asserted 0.99
s1	We then discuss the implications of this for the existence of boundary correlators in the hypothesized dS/cft correspondence.	contribution 0.81	0.66	0.04	unclear 0.82
s2	We find that dS complementarity precludes the existence of the appropriate limits.	result 1.00	0.93	0.68	asserted 1.00
s3	We find that the limits exist only in approximations in which the entropy of the de Sitter Space is infinite.	result 1.00	0.91	0.24	asserted 1.00
s4	The reason that the correlators exist in quantum field theory in the de Sitter Space background is traced to the fact that horizon entropy is infinite in QFT.	interpretation 0.91	0.69	0.15	asserted 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: theoretical result 0.69 · evidence from argument 0.95.

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P abstract

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T body sentences
C citations
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Every quoted sentence on this record is the authors'. Every label is from Pith's closed vocabulary, with the probability shown beside it. Every number in the measurements table is the authors', checked by code. Record as JSON

The paper

Original abstract

In this paper a de Sitter Space version of Black Hole Complementarity is formulated which states that an observer in de Sitter Space describes the surrounding space as a sealed finite temperature cavity bounded by a horizon which allows no loss of information. We then discuss the implications of this for the existence of boundary correlators in the hypothesized dS/cft correspondence. We find that dS complementarity precludes the existence of the appropriate limits. We find that the limits exist only in approximations in which the entropy of the de Sitter Space is infinite. The reason that the correlators exist in quantum field theory in the de Sitter Space background is traced to the fact that horizon entropy is infinite in QFT.

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References

Forward citations

Cited by 19 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

de Sitter Vacua in String Theory
hep-th 2003-01 conditional novelty 9.0 of 10

Type IIB flux compactification, plus a non-perturbative superpotential, plus a warped anti-D3 uplift, yields a metastable de Sitter vacuum with all moduli fixed and a lifetime far exceeding 10^10 years.
Extremal black hole mimickers: geometry, stability, and long-delay signal trains
hep-th 2026-10 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

A horizonless extremal black hole mimicker is built, and scalar perturbations produce a long-delay signal train with delay ~1/λ, distinct from the ln(1/λ) echoes of non-extremal mimickers.
Cosmological pole-skipping, shock waves and quantum chaotic dynamics of de Sitter horizons
hep-th 2025-08 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

Pole-skipping in Schwarzschild-de Sitter predicts superluminal and imaginary butterfly velocities, confirmed by shock wave analysis, hinting at nonlocal and non-Hermitian dual dynamics.
Black Holes and Random Matrices
hep-th 2016-11 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

The late-time spectrum of the SYK model reproduces random matrix statistics, which the authors propose is the generic late-time behavior of large AdS black holes.
The dS/dS Correspondence
hep-th 2004-07 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

De Sitter space in d dimensions is proposed to be dual to two cut-off conformal field theories on de Sitter space in d-1 dimensions, coupled to each other and to (d-1)-dimensional gravity.

Show 14 more citing papers

Information Recovery From Black Holes
hep-th 2006-04 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

In any quantum gravity theory with a finite number of black hole microstates, measuring the energy and other conserved charges at infinity completely identifies the microstate, so information is never truly lost.
The Anthropic Landscape of String Theory
hep-th 2003-02 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

String theory plausibly has an unimaginably large landscape of vacua, making anthropic selection, not unique derivation, the likely route to the observed cosmological constant.
The Trouble with de Sitter Space
hep-th 2002-12 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

Finite de Sitter entropy and exact SO(d,1) symmetry are mutually incompatible, so a de Sitter phase cannot outlive its Poincare recurrence time.
Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant
hep-th 2002-08 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

Under holographic and horizon-complementarity assumptions, a true cosmological constant makes ordinary post-inflationary universes vastly outnumbered by fluctuation-born ones, implying the cosmological constant is not...
Holographic complexity of de Sitter black holes
hep-th 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

In SdS black hole holography, CV and CV2.0 complexities grow linearly while CA growth vanishes due to finite action, with matching rates between static patch and dS/CFT schemes.
The central dogma and cosmological horizons
hep-th 2021-10 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Anchoring extremal surfaces to the de Sitter horizon with a two-sided extremization reproduces vanishing total entropy, A/4G for one static patch, an island-like transition at half the horizon, and a de Sitter Hartman...
De Sitter Holography: Fluctuations, Anomalous Symmetry, and Wormholes
hep-th 2021-06 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Finite entropy breaks the classical O(d,1) symmetry of de Sitter space at order exp(-S0), and the same non-perturbative effects that break it are argued to produce Boltzmann fluctuations and Nariai wormhole saddles.
More quantum noise from wormholes
hep-th 2020-08 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Wormholes in dilaton gravity with matter backreaction reproduce the ensemble-averaged variance of the noise matrix elements that correct Hawking's thermal radiation.
Complementarity Endures: No Firewall for an Infalling Observer
hep-th 2012-07 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

The firewall paradox is avoided because the measurement basis that selects classical Hawking radiation is generically not the basis that would force a high-energy state at the horizon.
Thermodynamics of de Sitter Black Holes: Thermal Cosmological Constant
hep-th 2006-02 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

In Kerr-Newman de Sitter spacetime, treating the cosmological constant as a thermodynamic variable yields a generalized Smarr formula and, via the generalized second law, forces the cosmological constant to decrease.
A Dynamical Systems Framework for Reinforcement Learning Safety and Robustness Verification
cs.AI 2025-08 unverdicted novelty 4.0 of 10

The claimed RL safety verification framework is absent from the manuscript; the body text is an unrelated high-energy physics paper about de Sitter horizon chaos.
Near-horizon modifications in finite $N$ holography
hep-th 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 3.0 of 10

Explicit reconstructions in modified near-horizon AdS2 and BTZ geometries recover prior non-locality estimates controlled by a throat parameter and exhibit dip-ramp-plateau spectral form factors in 3D.
Hilbert Bundles and Holographic Space-time: the Hydrodynamic Approach to Gravity
hep-th 2025-02 conditional novelty 3.0 of 10

Einstein's equations are treated as hydrodynamic equations for the area-law entropy of causal diamonds, with quantum dynamics proposed to live in a Hilbert bundle over spacetime geodesics.
De Sitter Musings
hep-th 2012-05 accept novelty 3.0 of 10

A survey of de Sitter physics arguing that the static-patch observer and the far-future-boundary metaobserver are genuinely distinct problems, and that most open questions in the field come from conflating them.

How the literature uses it

37 arXiv papers cite this in 52 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

Papers citing it · 41 sentences without a confident label

Cites it as support 1 paper

In summary, if a more careful BRST analysis confirms our heuristic picture of perturbative quantum gravity observables in dS space, then the additional assumptions of a finite dimensional Hilbert space and fast scrambling imply that there are NO asymptotic observables, as first suggested in [ref] [ref] .

"Observables" in de Sitter Quantum Gravity: in Perturbation Theory and Beyond · Conclusions · 0.96

Cites it as background 9 papers

Stable black holes in AdS are expected to exhibit very small but erratic fluctuations in late time correlation functions $⟨ϕ(t)ϕ(0)⟩$ [ref] .

Firewalls from wormholes · Introduction · 0.83
Several authors [ref] have proposed a complementarity principle for de Sitter space similar to the black hole version that we discussed in the previous subsection.

de Sitter Complementarity, TCC, and the Swampland · de Sitter complementarity · 0.98
Until recently, only very general properties of the holographic dual theory could be established, based on symmetries [ref] and the holographic covariant entropy bound [ref] .

Closed FRW holography: A time-dependent ER=EPR realization · Introduction · 0.94

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