Truly Lorentzian quantum cosmology

Abstract

Quantum cosmology based on Lorentzian path integrals is a promising avenue. However, many previous works allow non-Lorentzian configurations by integrating the squared scale factor over the whole real line. Here we show that restricting the minisuperspace path integral to Lorentzian configurations with positive squared scale factor can significantly change the expectation values. In addition, this enables the study of causal horizons and their quantum fluctuations, and achieves singularity avoidance trivially by excluding singular minisuperspace geometries as non-Lorentzian. The results indicate that semiclassical saddle point approximation is not always valid in truly Lorentzian quantum cosmology. As a consequence, related works on the tunnelling and no-boundary proposals, bouncing cosmology, and the quantum origin of inflation etc. need to be reexamined.

minor updates to improve presentation, 34 pages, 10 figures, matches published version well

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• De Sitter horizon entropy from a simplicial Lorentzian path integral
• Lorentzian quantum cosmology with torsion
• Stable Evaluation of Lefschetz Thimble Intersection Numbers: Towards Real-Time Path Integrals