Does string theory predict an open universe?

Abstract

It has been claimed that the string landscape predicts an open universe, with negative curvature. The prediction is a consequence of a large number of metastable string vacua, and the properties of the Coleman--De Luccia instanton which describes vacuum tunneling. We examine the robustness of this claim, which is of particular importance since it seems to be one of string theory's few claims to falsifiability. We find that, due to subleading tunneling processes, the prediction is sensitive to unknown properties of the landscape. Under plausible assumptions, universes like ours are as likely to be closed as open.

4 pages, 1 figure, revtex. Final version to appear in Physics Letters B

References in corpus (9)

• Classical Black Hole Production in High-Energy Collisions
• Observational Consequences of a Landscape
• Likely Values of the Cosmological Constant
• Inflation with $\Omega \ne 1$
• Quantum Creation of an Open Inflationary Universe
• Anthropic prediction for Lambda and the Q catastrophe
• Quantum Production of Black Holes
• Density Perturbations and the Cosmological Constant from Inflationary Landscapes
• Anthropic Distribution for Cosmological Constant and Primordial Density Perturbations

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Spatial curvature endgame: Reaching the limit of curvature determination
• Curvature Constraints from the Causal Entropic Principle
• Initial Conditions for Bubble Universes
• Horizon Complementarity and Casimir Violations of the Null Energy Condition
• Positive curvature and scalar field tunneling in the landscape
• Observe the open universe in the sky?