Monte Carlo quantum cosmology with a modified Euclidean action

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kabir, Malaik, Hassan, Syed Moeez
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Kabir, Malaik
Hassan, Syed Moeez
author_facet Kabir, Malaik
Hassan, Syed Moeez
contents We numerically study the Euclidean quantum cosmology of a closed, homogeneous and isotropic universe with a cosmological constant. A dust field acts as a clock, and we compute the ground state wavefunction, correlation function, and mean volume of the universe by performing path integral Monte Carlo simulations. To make the path integral convergent, the argument of the exponent in the weight of the path integral is chosen to be either the absolute value of the Euclidean action, or its square. We compare our results to the standard case (with a hard cutoff at zero action), and find that the absolute value produces similar results, whereas the squared method gives substantially different results. We detail two different methods of `fixing' the squared case, and test them for the simple harmonic oscillator, and for this cosmological model. We also find that for a large positive cosmological constant, the universe undergoes multiple cycles of expansion and contraction for all three weights, and reaches much larger sizes with the squared weight.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_25125
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Monte Carlo quantum cosmology with a modified Euclidean action
Kabir, Malaik
Hassan, Syed Moeez
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
We numerically study the Euclidean quantum cosmology of a closed, homogeneous and isotropic universe with a cosmological constant. A dust field acts as a clock, and we compute the ground state wavefunction, correlation function, and mean volume of the universe by performing path integral Monte Carlo simulations. To make the path integral convergent, the argument of the exponent in the weight of the path integral is chosen to be either the absolute value of the Euclidean action, or its square. We compare our results to the standard case (with a hard cutoff at zero action), and find that the absolute value produces similar results, whereas the squared method gives substantially different results. We detail two different methods of `fixing' the squared case, and test them for the simple harmonic oscillator, and for this cosmological model. We also find that for a large positive cosmological constant, the universe undergoes multiple cycles of expansion and contraction for all three weights, and reaches much larger sizes with the squared weight.
title Monte Carlo quantum cosmology with a modified Euclidean action
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25125