No Arabic abstract
This is a status report on a research program aimed at obtaining quantum-gravitational physics inside a cosmological horizon through dS/CFT, i.e. through a holographic description at past/future infinity of de Sitter space. The program aims to bring together two main elements. The first is the observation by Anninos, Hartman and Strominger that Vasilievs higher-spin gravity provides a working model for dS/CFT in 3+1 dimensions. The second is the proposal by Parikh, Savonije and Verlinde that dS/CFT may prove more tractable if one works in so-called elliptic de Sitter space - a folded-in-half version of global de Sitter where antipodal points have been identified. We review some relevant progress concerning quantum field theory on elliptic de Sitter space, higher-spin gravity and its holographic duality with a free vector model. We present our reasons for optimism that the approach outlined here will lead to a full holographic description of quantum (higher-spin) gravity in the causal patch of a de Sitter observer.
We put forward new explicit realisations of dS/CFT that relate ${cal N}=2$ supersymmetric Euclidean vector models with reversed spin-statistics in three dimensions to specific supersymmetric Vasiliev theories in four-dimensional de Sitter space. The partition function of the free supersymmetric vector model deformed by a range of low spin deformations that preserve supersymmetry appears to specify a well-defined wave function with asymptotic de Sitter boundary conditions in the bulk. In particular we find the wave function is globally peaked at undeformed de Sitter space, with a low amplitude for strong deformations. This suggests that supersymmetric de Sitter space is stable in higher-spin gravity and in particular free from ghosts. We speculate this is a limiting case of the de Sitter realizations in exotic string theories.
We study fermionic bulk fields in the dS/CFT dualities relating ${cal N}=2$ supersymmetric Euclidean vector models with reversed spin-statistics in three dimensions to supersymmetric Vasiliev theories in four-dimensional de Sitter space. These dualities specify the Hartle - Hawking wave function in terms of the partition function of deformations of the vector models. We evaluate this wave function in homogeneous minisuperspace models consisting of supersymmetry-breaking combinations of a half-integer spin field with either a scalar, a pseudoscalar or a metric squashing. The wave function appears to be well-behaved and globally peaked at or near the supersymmetric de Sitter vacuum, with a low amplitude for large deformations. Its behavior in the semiclassical limit qualitatively agrees with earlier bulk computations both for massless and massive fermionic fields.
We consider the holographic duality between 4d type-A higher-spin gravity and a 3d free vector model. It is known that the Feynman diagrams for boundary correlators can be encapsulated in an HS-algebraic twistorial expression. This expression can be evaluated not just on separate boundary insertions, but on entire finite source distributions. We do so for the first time, and find that the result Z_HS disagrees with the usual CFT partition function. While such disagreement was expected due to contact corrections, it persists even in their absence. We ascribe it to a confusion between on-shell and off-shell boundary calculations. In Lorentzian boundary signature, this manifests via wrong relative signs for Feynman diagrams with different permutations of the source points. In Euclidean, the signs are instead ambiguous, spoiling would-be linear superpositions. Framing the situation as a conflict between boundary locality and HS symmetry, we sacrifice locality and choose to take Z_HS seriously. We are rewarded by the dissolution of a long-standing pathology in higher-spin dS/CFT. Though we lose the connection to the local CFT, the precise form of Z_HS can be recovered from first principles, by demanding a spin-local boundary action.
We study the dS/CFT duality between minimal type-A higher-spin gravity and the free Sp(2N) vector model. We consider the bulk spacetime as elliptic de Sitter space dS_4/Z_2, in which antipodal points have been identified. We apply a technique from arXiv:1509.05890, which extracts the quantum-mechanical commutators (or Poisson brackets) of the linearized bulk theory in an *observable patch* of dS_4/Z_2 directly from the boundary 2-point function. Thus, we construct the Lorentzian commutators of the linearized bulk theory from the Euclidean CFT. In the present paper, we execute this technique for the entire higher-spin multiplet, using a higher-spin-covariant language, which provides a promising framework for the future inclusion of bulk interactions. Aside from its importance for dS/CFT, our construction of a Hamiltonian structure for a bulk causal region should be of interest within higher-spin theory itself. The price we pay is a partial symmetry breaking, from the full dS group (and its higher-spin extension) to the symmetry group of an observable patch. While the boundary field theory plays a role in our arguments, the results can be fully expressed within a boundary *particle mechanics*. Bulk fields arise from this boundary mechanics via a version of second quantization.
It was shown in arXiv:1808.09428 that the modified 4d version of the KKLT model proposed in arXiv:1707.08678 is inconsistent for large values of the parameter $c$ advocated in arXiv:1707.08678, since there is a point in the moduli space where $|D_SW|^2$ vanishes. The authors responded with yet another modification of the 4d KKLT model arXiv:1809.06618. However, for large $c$, this model suffers from an even worse problem: not only is there a point in the moduli space where $|D_SW|^2$ vanishes, there is also a region in the moduli space where $|D_SW|^2$ is negative. Meanwhile for small $c$ these models have dS vacua. We construct improved models, which are fully consistent for all values of parameters, just as the original version of the KKLT model using a nilpotent superfield. These models have a family of dS vacua for a broad range of parameter values. Thus, the results of the analysis of all presently available consistent generalizations of the 4d KKLT model, in the domain of their validity, confirm the existence of dS vacua in the KKLT scenario.