TY - JOUR
T1 - Transitions between de Sitter minima
AU - Batra, Puneet
AU - Kleban, Matthew
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2007 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2007/11/5
Y1 - 2007/11/5
N2 - We investigate the cosmological signatures of instantons mediating tunneling between de Sitter minima. For generic potentials the Coleman-de Luccia instanton does not necessarily exist; when it does not, the instanton which contributes to the decay rate is the trivial constant solution, known as the Hawking-Moss instanton. With the aid of a toy model we interpret this solution and describe the resulting cosmology. In neither the Coleman-de Luccia nor Hawking-Moss case can the resulting cosmology be closed. An observation of significant positive curvature would therefore rule out the possibility that our universe arose from any transition from a neighboring minimum in the string-theory landscape.
AB - We investigate the cosmological signatures of instantons mediating tunneling between de Sitter minima. For generic potentials the Coleman-de Luccia instanton does not necessarily exist; when it does not, the instanton which contributes to the decay rate is the trivial constant solution, known as the Hawking-Moss instanton. With the aid of a toy model we interpret this solution and describe the resulting cosmology. In neither the Coleman-de Luccia nor Hawking-Moss case can the resulting cosmology be closed. An observation of significant positive curvature would therefore rule out the possibility that our universe arose from any transition from a neighboring minimum in the string-theory landscape.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.76.103510
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.76.103510
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:35848966154
VL - 76
JO - Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
JF - Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
SN - 1550-7998
IS - 10
M1 - 103510
ER -