Probability of boundary conditions in quantum cosmology

DOI10.1007/S10714-017-2185-ZzbMATH Open1358.83110arXiv1603.08172OpenAlexW3099548322MaRDI QIDQ520106FDOQ520106

Yasusada Nambu, Hiroshi Suenobu

Publication date: 3 April 2017

Published in: General Relativity and Gravitation (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: One of the main interest in quantum cosmology is to determine boundary conditions for the wave function of the universe which can predict observational data of our universe. For this purpose, we solve the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for a closed universe with a scalar field numerically and evaluate probabilities for boundary conditions of the wave function of the universe. To impose boundary conditions of the wave function, we use exact solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation with a constant scalar field potential. These exact solutions include wave functions with well known boundary condition proposals, the no-boundary proposal and the tunneling proposal. We specify the exact solutions by introducing two real parameters to discriminate boundary conditions, and obtain the probability for these parameters under the requirement of sufficient e-foldings of the inflation. The probability distribution of boundary conditions prefers the tunneling boundary condition to the no-boundary boundary condition. Furthermore, for large values of a model parameter related to the inflaton mass and the cosmological constant, the probability of boundary conditions selects an unique boundary condition different from the tunneling type.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.08172

zbMATH Keywords

probabilityboundary conditioninflationquantum cosmology

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of statistics to physics (62P35) Quantum field theory on curved space or space-time backgrounds (81T20) Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Relativistic cosmology (83F05)

Cites Work

• Quantum Theory of Gravity. I. The Canonical Theory
• Wave function of the Universe
• Quantum gravity.
• No-Boundary Measure of the Universe
• Homogeneous instantons in bigravity
• Hartle–Hawking no-boundary proposal in dRGT massive gravity: making inflation exponentially more probable

Cited In (4)

• Probabilities in the inflationary multiverse
• Quantum cosmology with a complex \(\phi^4\) field at finite temperature
• Boundary conditions for quantum cosmology
• Problem of the boundary condition in quantum cosmology: a simple example

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