The phase of the gravitational path integral

2025/04/01 by Shi, Xiaoyi, Gustavo J. Turiaci, Turiaci, Gustavo J. · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2504.00900

Abstract

The gravitational path integral on S² × S² can be interpreted either as evaluating a contribution to the norm of the Hartle-Hawking wavefunction conditional on spatial S¹ × S² topology, or the pair creation rate of black holes in de Sitter. Both interpretations are distinguished at the quantum level. The former requires the path integral to be real and the latter to be imaginary. We develop a formalism to efficiently compute the phase of the gravitational path integral on Einstein spaces. We apply it to a broad class of spacetimes and in particular S²× S^D-2, finding it to be real and positive. We generalize some of the analysis to cases with charge and rotation.

Cited by

• Two dimensional de-Sitter and deformed CFTs
• On the phase of the de Sitter density of states
• An algebra for covariant observers in de Sitter space
• Complex Kerr-AdS Black Holes
• One loop aspects of Coleman de Luccia instantons at small backreaction

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