On the Creation of the Universe via Ekpyrotic Instantons

Abstract

We present a new class of complex instantons in the context of ekpyrotic cosmological theories. These instantons, which satisfy the "no-boundary" boundary conditions, describe the emergence of a classical, contracting universe out of nothing. The ekpyrotic attractor is essential in guaranteeing an evolution towards a real, Lorentzian history of the universe. In the context of the no-boundary proposal, the relative probability for such ekpyrotic histories compared to inflationary ones is very high -- in fact, assuming a bounce can be incorporated, these new instantons currently describe the most likely origin of the universe.

5 pages

References in corpus (4)

• New Ekpyrotic Cosmology
• The Classical Universes of the No-Boundary Quantum State
• The No-Boundary Measure of the Universe
• On the No-Boundary Proposal for Ekpyrotic and Cyclic Cosmologies

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Review of the No-Boundary Wave Function
• A Safe Beginning for the Universe?
• Classical Inflationary and Ekpyrotic Universes in the No-Boundary Wavefunction
• Bouncing Universe from Nothing
• Cosmological consequences of a principle of finite amplitudes
• Converting entropy to curvature perturbations after a cosmic bounce
• The Wave Function of Simple Universes, Analytically Continued From Negative to Positive Potentials
• The Cosmological OTOC: Formulating new cosmological micro-canonical correlation functions for random chaotic fluctuations in Out-of-Equilibrium Quantum Statistical Field Theory
• A small Universe
• Allowable Complex Scalars from Kaluza-Klein Compactifications and Metric Rescalings
• Revisiting the no-boundary proposal with a scalar field
• How to Create Universes with Internal Flux
• Dissipative Emergence of Inflation from Quasi-Cyclic Universe