De Sitter horizon entropy from a simplicial Lorentzian path integral

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Dittrich, Bianca, Jacobson, Ted, Padua-Argüelles, José
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Dittrich, Bianca
Jacobson, Ted
Padua-Argüelles, José
author_facet Dittrich, Bianca
Jacobson, Ted
Padua-Argüelles, José
contents The dimension of the Hilbert space of a quantum gravitational system can be written formally as a path integral partition function over Lorentzian metrics. We implement this in a 2+1 dimensional simplicial minisuperspace model in which the system is a spatial topological disc, and recover by contour deformation through a Euclidean saddle the entropy of the de Sitter static patch, up to discretization artifacts. The model illustrates the importance of integration over both positive and negative lapse to enforce the gravitational constraints, and of restriction to complex metrics for which the fluctuation integrals would converge. Although a strictly Lorentzian path integral is oscillatory, an exponentially large partition function results from unavoidable imaginary contributions to the action. These arise from analytic continuation of the simplicial (Regge) action for configurations with codimension-2 simplices where the metric fails to be Lorentzian. In particular, the dominant contribution comes from configurations with contractible closed timelike curves that encircle the boundary of the disc, in close correspondence with recent continuum results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_02119
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle De Sitter horizon entropy from a simplicial Lorentzian path integral
Dittrich, Bianca
Jacobson, Ted
Padua-Argüelles, José
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
The dimension of the Hilbert space of a quantum gravitational system can be written formally as a path integral partition function over Lorentzian metrics. We implement this in a 2+1 dimensional simplicial minisuperspace model in which the system is a spatial topological disc, and recover by contour deformation through a Euclidean saddle the entropy of the de Sitter static patch, up to discretization artifacts. The model illustrates the importance of integration over both positive and negative lapse to enforce the gravitational constraints, and of restriction to complex metrics for which the fluctuation integrals would converge. Although a strictly Lorentzian path integral is oscillatory, an exponentially large partition function results from unavoidable imaginary contributions to the action. These arise from analytic continuation of the simplicial (Regge) action for configurations with codimension-2 simplices where the metric fails to be Lorentzian. In particular, the dominant contribution comes from configurations with contractible closed timelike curves that encircle the boundary of the disc, in close correspondence with recent continuum results.
title De Sitter horizon entropy from a simplicial Lorentzian path integral
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.02119