Real observers solving imaginary problems

2024/12/18 by Juan Maldacena, Maldacena, Juan · 3 voices · 9 citations
Computer Science · #Artificial Intelligence in Games #gr-qc #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.14014

openalex publication_date 2024/12/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

The sphere partition function is one of the simplest euclidean gravity computations. It is usually interpreted as count of states. However, the one loop gravity correction contains a dimension dependent phase factor, i^D+2, which seems confusing for such an interpretation. We show that, after including an observer, this phase gets mostly cancelled for the quantity that should correspond to a count of states. However, an overall minus sign remains.

Cited by

• Quantum Liouville Cosmology
• Quantum Walks and Exact RG in de Sitter Space
• Two dimensional de-Sitter and deformed CFTs
• On the phase of the de Sitter density of states
• Gibbons-Hawking Entropy and BMN Strings
• One loop aspects of Coleman de Luccia instantons at small backreaction
• A Brief Note on Complex AdS-Schwarzschild Black Holes
• De Sitter Complexity Grows Linearly in the Static Patch
• Correlation functions of von Neumann entropy

Discussions

• #arXiv “Real observers solving imaginary problems,” by Juan Maldacena https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14014 “The simplest euclidean gravity computation is the sphere partition function with a dimension dep [bsky, 8 points, 1 comments]
• #arXiv “Real observers solving imaginary problems,” by Juan Maldacena https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14014 “The simplest euclidean gravity computation is the sphere partition function with a dimension dep [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• # arXiv “Real observers solving imaginary problems,” by Juan Maldacena https:// arxiv.org/abs/2412.14014 “The simplest euclidean gravity computation is the sphere partition function with a dimension d [mastodon, 0 points, 0 comments]

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• On the One-Loop Exactness of Gravity Partition Function
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