2023/06/24 by Sergio E. Aguilar-Gutierrez, Thomas Hertog, Aguilar-Gutierrez, Sergio E. +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2306.13951
openalex publication_date 2023/06/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We construct wormholes supported by axion flux in the presence of a positive cosmological constant. The solutions describe compact, one-handle bodies colloquially known as kettlebell geometries. The wormholes are perturbatively stable, but regularity of the Euclidean geometry implies an upper bound on the axion flux. Viewed as no-boundary saddle points, wormholes are suppressed relative to the round sphere. The symmetric kettlebell with maximal axion density has vanishing Euclidean action. Continuing into the Lorentzian across the equator, the solutions describe two expanding branches of de Sitter space filled with an axion field that rapidly dilutes and connected by a quantum bounce across which the arrow of time reverses.