De Sitter Background Research Articles

De Sitter gravity/Euclidean conformal gravity correspondence

The holographic dual of a gravitational theory around the de Sitter background is argued to be a Euclidean conformal gravity theory in one fewer dimensions. The measure for the holographic theory naturally includes a sum over topologies as well as conformal structures.

Quantum scalar corrections to the gravitational potentials on de Sitter background

We employ the graviton self-energy induced by a massless, minimally coupled (MMC) scalar on de Sitter background to compute the quantum corrections to the gravitational potentials of a static point particle with a mass $M$. The Schwinger-Keldysh formalism is used to derive real and causal effective field equations. When evaluated at the one-loop order, the gravitational potentials exhibit a secular decrease in the observed gravitational coupling $G$. This can also be interpreted as a (time dependent) anti-screening of the mass $M$.

Supersymmetry, Cosmological Constant and Inflation: Towards a fundamental cosmic picture via “running vacuum”

On the occasion of a century from the proposal of General relativity by Einstein, I attempt to tackle some open issues in modern cosmology, via a toy but non-trivial model. Specifically, I would like to link together: (i) the smallness of the cosmological constant today, (ii) the evolution of the universe from an inflationary era after the big-bang till now, and (iii) local supersymmetry in the gravitational sector (supergravity) with a broken spectrum at early eras, by making use of the concept of the "running vacuum" in the context of a simple toy model of four-dimensional N=1 supergravity. The model is characterised by dynamically broken local supersymmetry, induced by the formation of gravitino condensates in the early universe. As I will argue, there is a Starobinsky-type inflationary era characterising the broken supersymmetry phase in this model, which is compatible with the current cosmological data, provided a given constraint is satisfied among some tree-level parameters of the model and the renormalised cosmological constant of the de Sitter background used in the analysis. Applying the "running vacuum" concept, then, to the effective field theory at the exit of inflation, makes a smooth connection (in cosmic time) with the radiation dominance epoch and subsequently with the current era of the Universe, characterised by a small (but dominant) cosmological-constant contribution to the cosmic energy density. In this approach, the smallness of the cosmological constant today is attributed to the failure (due to quantum gravity non-perturbative effects) of the aforementioned constraint.

Nonlocal gravity in D dimensions: Propagators, entropy, and a bouncing cosmology

We present the graviton propagator for an infinite derivative, $D$-dimensional, non-local action, up to quadratic order in curvature around a Minkowski background, and discuss the conditions required for this class of gravity theory to be ghost-free. We then study the gravitational entropy for de-Sitter and Anti-de Sitter backgrounds, before comparing with a recently derived result for a Schwarzschild blackhole, generalised to arbitrary $D$-dimensions, whereby the entropy is given simply by the area law. A novel approach of decomposing the entropy into its $(r, t)$ and spherical components is adopted in order to illustrate the differences more clearly. We conclude with a discussion of de-Sitter entropy in the framework of a non-singular bouncing cosmology.

Extended Weyl invariance in a bimetric model and partial masslessness

We revisit a particular ghost-free bimetric model which is related to both partial masslessness (PM) and conformal gravity. Linearly, the model propagates six instead of seven degrees of freedom not only around de Sitter but also around flat spacetime. Nonlinearly, the equations of motion can be recast in the form of expansions in powers of curvatures, and exhibit a remarkable amount of structure. In this form, the equations are shown to be invariant under scalar gauge transformations, at least up to six orders in derivatives, the lowest order term being a Weyl scaling of the metrics. The terms at two-derivative order reproduce the usual PM gauge transformations on de Sitter backgrounds. At the four-derivative order, a potential obstruction that could destroy the symmetry is shown to vanish. This in turn guarantees the gauge invariance to at least six-orders in derivatives. This is equivalent to adding up to ten-derivative corrections to conformal gravity. More generally, we outline a procedure for constructing the gauge transformations order by order as an expansion in derivatives and comment on the validity and limitations of the procedure. We also discuss recent arguments against the existence of a PM gauge symmetry in bimetric theory and show that, at least in their present form, they are evaded by the model considered here. Finally, we argue that a bimetric approach to PM theory is more promising than one based on the existence of a fundamental PM field.

Late-time structure of the Bunch-Davies de Sitter wavefunction

We examine the late time behavior of the Bunch-Davies wavefunction for interacting light fields in a de Sitter background. We use perturbative techniques developed in the framework of AdS/CFT, and analytically continue to compute tree and loop level contributions to the Bunch-Davies wavefunction. We consider self-interacting scalars of general mass, but focus especially on the massless and conformally coupled cases. We show that certain contributions grow logarithmically in conformal time both at tree and loop level. We also consider gauge fields and gravitons. The four-dimensional Fefferman-Graham expansion of classical asymptotically de Sitter solutions is used to show that the wavefunction contains no logarithmic growth in the pure graviton sector at tree level. Finally, assuming a holographic relation between the wavefunction and the partition function of a conformal field theory, we interpret the logarithmic growths in the language of conformal field theory.

The Krein–Gupta–Bleuler quantization in de Sitter space–time; Casimir energy–momentum tensor for a curved brane

In this paper, vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the energy–momentum tensor for a conformally coupled scalar field in de Sitter space–time is investigated through the Krein–Gupta–Bleuler construction. This construction has already been successfully applied to the de Sitter minimally coupled massless scalar field and massless spin-2 field to obtain a causal and fully covariant quantum field on de Sitter background. We also consider the effects of boundary conditions. In this respect, Casimir energy–momentum tensor induced by Dirichlet boundary condition on a curved brane is evaluated.

One-loop quantum electrodynamic correction to the gravitational potentials on de Sitter spacetime

We compute the one-loop photon contribution to the graviton self-energy on a de Sitter background and use it to solve the linearized Einstein equation for a point mass. Our results show that a comoving observer sees a logarithmic spatial running Newton's constant. Equivalently, a static observer reports a secular suppression of the Newtonian potential.

Graviton loop corrections to vacuum polarization in de Sitter in a general covariant gauge

We evaluate the one-graviton loop contribution to the vacuum polarization on de Sitter background in a 1-parameter family of exact, de Sitter invariant gauges. Our result is computed using dimensional regularization and fully renormalized with Bogoliubov, Parasiuk, Hepp and Zimmerman counterterms, which must include a noninvariant owing to the time-ordered interactions. Because the graviton propagator engenders a physical breaking of de Sitter invariance two structure functions are needed to express the result. In addition to its relevance for the gauge issue this is the first time a covariant gauge graviton propagator has been used to compute a noncoincident loop. A number of identities are derived which should facilitate further graviton loop computations.

Short distance physics of the inflationary de Sitter universe

In this work, we investigate inflationary cosmology using scalar field theory deformed by the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) containing a linear momentum term. Apart from being consistent with the existence of a minimum measurable length scale, this GUP is also consistent with doubly special relativity and hence with the existence of maximum measurable momentum. We use this deformed scalar field theory to analyze the tensor and scalar mode equations in a de Sitter background, and to calculate modifications to the tensor-to-scalar ratio. Finally, we compare our results for the tensor-to-scalar ratio with the Planck data to constrain the minimum length parameter in the GUP.

Fine tuning may not be enough

We argue that the fine tuning problems of scalar-driven inflation may be worse than is commonly believed. The reason is that reheating requires the inflaton to be coupled to other matter fields whose vacuum fluctuations alter the inflaton potential. The usual response has been that even more fine-tuning of the classical potential V(φ) can repair any damage done in this way. We point out that the effective potential in de Sitter background actually depends in a complicated way upon the dimensionless combination of φ/H. We also show that the factors of H which occur in de Sitter do not even correspond to local functionals of the metric for general geometries, nor are they Planck-suppressed.

Weakly broken galileon symmetry

Effective theories of a scalar ϕ invariant under the internal galileon symmetry ϕ→ϕ+bμ xμ have been extensively studied due to their special theoretical and phenomenological properties. In this paper, we introduce the notion of weakly broken galileon invariance, which characterizes the unique class of couplings of such theories to gravity that maximally retain their defining symmetry. The curved-space remnant of the galileon's quantum properties allows to construct (quasi) de Sitter backgrounds largely insensitive to loop corrections. We exploit this fact to build novel cosmological models with interesting phenomenology, relevant for both inflation and late-time acceleration of the universe.

Auxiliary Conformally Invariant Higher-Spin Field in de Sitter Space

We employ de Sitter isometry to study a mixed symmetric rank-3 tensor field in de Sitter space by finding the field equation, solution and two-point function which are conformally invariant. It is proved that such a tensor field plays a key role in conformal theory of linear gravity (Binegar et al., Phys. Rev. D 27, 2249, 1983) . In de Sitter space from the group theoretical point of view this kind of tensor could associate with two unitary irreducible representations (UIR) of the de Sitter group (Takook et al., J.Math. Phys. 51, 032503, 2010), which one representation has a flat limit, namely, in zero curvature coincides to the UIR of Poincare group, however, the second one which is named as auxiliary field, becomes significant in the study of conformal gravity in de Sitter background. We show that the rank-3 tensor solution can be written in terms of a massless minimally coupled scalar field and also the related two-point function is a function of a massless minimally coupled scalar two-point function.

Instantons near a tachyonic top in an anti de Sitter and the no-boundary regulator

We investigate instantons near a tachyonic top in an anti de Sitter (AdS) background. If the mass scale around the hill-top is above the Breitenlohner–Freedman (BF) bound, then the top is classically stable. When the BF bound is satisfied, it is already known that there can exist instantons with a non-zero probability, though fine-tunings of the potential are required. On the other hand, we may consider a possibility to obtain instantons with a non-zero probability for a more natural shape of potentials. We found that the no-boundary regulator is useful to assign a non-zero probability for general instantons near the tachyonic top with a consistent framework. To use the no-boundary regulator, we need to introduce the complexification of fields. One interesting feature is that, for these AdS instantons, the classicality may not be satisfied after the Wick rotation and hence after the nucleation. This magnifies a novel difference between dS and AdS; a semi-classical boundary observer in AdS may notice the dispersion of quantum fields as a kind of uncertainty, while every semi-classical observer in dS is classicalized individually and hence there is no semi-classical observer who can see the quantum dispersion of the scalar field.

Higher Derivative Gravity and Conformal Gravity from Bimetric and Partially Massless Bimetric Theory

In this paper, we establish the correspondence between ghost-free bimetric theory and a class of higher derivative gravity actions, including conformal gravity and new massive gravity. We also characterize the relation between the respective equations of motion and classical solutions. We illustrate that, in this framework, the spin-2 ghost of higher derivative gravity at the linear level is an artifact of the truncation to a four-derivative theory. The analysis also gives a relation between the proposed partially massless (PM) bimetric theory and conformal gravity, showing, in particular, the equivalence of their equations of motion at the four-derivative level. For the PM bimetric theory, this provides further evidence for the existence of an extra gauge symmetry and the associated loss of a propagating mode away from de Sitter backgrounds. The new symmetry is an extension of Weyl invariance, which may suggest the candidate PM bimetric theory as a possible ghost-free completion of conformal gravity.

Dynamics of magnetic shells and information loss problem

We investigate dynamics of magnetic thin-shells in three dimensional anti de Sitter background. Because of the magnetic field, an oscillatory solution is possible. This oscillating shell can tunnel to a collapsing shell or a bouncing shell, where both of tunnelings induce an event horizon and a singularity. In the entire path integral, via the oscillating solution, there is a non-zero probability to maintain a trivial causal structure without a singularity. Therefore, due to the path integral, the entire wave function can conserve information. Since an oscillating shell can tunnel after a number of oscillations, in the end, it will allow an infinite number of different branchings to classical histories. This system can be a good model of the effective loss of information, where information is conserved by a solution that is originated from gauge fields.

Excitation of photons by inflationary gravitons

We use a recent result for the graviton contribution to the one loop vacuum polarization to solve the effective field equations for dynamical photons on de Sitter background. Our results show that the electric field experiences a secular enhancement proportional to the number of inflationary e-foldings. We discuss the minimum this establishes for primordial inflation to seed cosmic magnetic fields.

Interaction between Maxwell field and charged scalar field in de Sitter universe

We study the theory of interaction between charged scalar field and Maxwell field in de Sitter background. Solving the equation of interacting fields, we define the in–out fields as asymptotic free fields and construct the reduction formalism for scalar field. Then we derive the perturbation expansion of the scattering operator. The first-order transition amplitudes corresponding to particle production from de Sitter vacuum and pair production in an external field are analyzed. We show that all these effects are important only in strong gravitational fields and vanish in the flat limit.

Inflationary gravitational waves in the effective field theory of modified gravity

In the approach of the effective field theory of modified gravity, we derive the second-order action and the equation of motion for tensor perturbations on the flat isotropic cosmological background. This analysis accommodates a wide range of gravitational theories including Horndeski theories, its generalization, and the theories with spatial derivatives higher than second order (e.g., Horava-Lifshitz gravity). We obtain the inflationary power spectrum of tensor modes by taking into account corrections induced by higher-order spatial derivatives and slow-roll corrections to the de Sitter background. We also show that the leading-order spectrum in concrete modified gravitational theories can be mapped on to that in General Relativity under a disformal transformation. Our general formula will be useful to constrain inflationary models from the future precise measurement of the B-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background.

Running of scalar spectral index in multi-field inflation

We compute the running of the scalar spectral index in general multi-field slow-roll inflation. By incorporating explicit momentum dependence at the moment of horizon crossing, we can find the running straightforwardly. At the same time, we can distinguish the contributions from the quasi de Sitter background and the super-horizon evolution of the field fluctuations.