Singular instantons and extra dimensions
Assuming that the universe is homogeneous, isotropic, and \(\Omega\sim 1\), \textit{S. W. Hawking} and \textit{N. Turok} [Phys. Lett. B 425, 25-32 (1998); Phys. Lett. B 432, 271-278 (1998)], have recently suggested that an open universe can be created from nothing using instanton processes without the need of a false vacuum phase. This approach leads to open inflation without the necessity of assuming a special potential. Moreover, since the Hawking-Turok Euclidean action of the instanton is integrable, they were able to use instantons to assign probabilities to different open universes. However, as pointed out by \textit{A. Vilenkin} [Phys. Rev. D 47, 7069-7070 (1998)], and others, the instanton has a singular boundary which would lead to the immediate decay of flat space (as the dimensional reduction of a 5-dimensional non-singular instanton). In the present note, the author presents a lucid discussion of these results and offers several alternate interpretations. It is suggested that the unsuppressed instability of flat space can be traded for metastability with a slow decay rate whenever the size of the extra dimension is large compared with the Planck scale. Contents include: an introduction; decay of flat space; inflation; cosmological perturbations and CMB anisotropies; conclusions; and a 16 item bibliography.
- Instantons and the 11th dimension
- Singular monopoles and gravitational instantons
- Dihedral singularities and gravitational instantons
- Instantons and wormholes for the universal hypermultiplet
- Singularity theorems for warped products and the stability of spatial extra dimensions
- Multi-instantons in higher dimensions and superstring solitons
- SINGULARITIES AND GAUGE-GRAVITY DUALITY
- Gravitational instantons and internal dimensions
- Instantons and Special Geometry
- Extensions of instantons
- Creation of closed or open universe from constrained instanton
- Resolving the singularity of the Hawking-Turok type instanton
- About the Coleman instantons in D dimensions
- Gravitational instantons in R^4-gravity for open inflation
- Extended open inflationary universes
- Singlet fermions on curved extra dimension tori
- GEOMETRIZED INSTANTONS AND THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE
- Sum rules from an extra dimension
- Gravitational instantons and internal dimensions
- Stability of flat space to singular instantons
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