Soft gravitons as Goldstone modes of spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetries in de Sitter spacetimes

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Sloth, Martin S.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Sloth, Martin S.
author_facet Sloth, Martin S.
contents I demonstrate that soft graviton modes in de Sitter spacetimes are the Goldstone modes of the spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetry group of de Sitter space. I then show that any local measurement, including the effects of the environment, will collapse the symmetric state onto the broken state in the large volume limit. In any discussion involving observers, de Sitter spacetimes are, therefore, best described globally by the broken phase, while local observers, in the small volume limit, can not discriminate between different degenerate global vacuum states and are therefore best described by the symmetric state. As a consequence, a small Hubble-sized local region initially in the symmetric state will, after a time scale corresponding to the Page time of de Sitter space, have expanded to a large region in the broken state. This illuminates the physical nature of soft graviton modes in de Sitter spacetimes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_03520
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Soft gravitons as Goldstone modes of spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetries in de Sitter spacetimes
Sloth, Martin S.
High Energy Physics - Theory
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Statistical Mechanics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
I demonstrate that soft graviton modes in de Sitter spacetimes are the Goldstone modes of the spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetry group of de Sitter space. I then show that any local measurement, including the effects of the environment, will collapse the symmetric state onto the broken state in the large volume limit. In any discussion involving observers, de Sitter spacetimes are, therefore, best described globally by the broken phase, while local observers, in the small volume limit, can not discriminate between different degenerate global vacuum states and are therefore best described by the symmetric state. As a consequence, a small Hubble-sized local region initially in the symmetric state will, after a time scale corresponding to the Page time of de Sitter space, have expanded to a large region in the broken state. This illuminates the physical nature of soft graviton modes in de Sitter spacetimes.
title Soft gravitons as Goldstone modes of spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetries in de Sitter spacetimes
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Statistical Mechanics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.03520