{
  "abstract": "We study the no-boundary wavefunction of Einstein gravity with positive cosmological constant. We identify families of weakly curved bulk saddles, including fillings of anisotropic late-time universes $\\mathbb{S}^p\\times\\mathbb{S}^q$, whose weights grow exponentially with geometric parameters of the late-time boundary. These runaways threaten the normalizability of the no-boundary state within gravitational effective field theory. Whether these saddles contribute remains open. Many of the runaway families we study violate the Kontsevich-Segal-Witten criterion, although several are minus asymptotically hyperbolic geometries whose one-loop determinants appear well-defined for pure gravity. For $\\mathbb{S}^1\\times\\mathbb{S}^q$ universes with $q\\equiv 0\\pmod4$, we construct a contour integral model that excludes the runaway at large $\\mathbb{S}^q$.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.23743",
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Jordan Cotler"
    },
    {
      "name": "Prateksh Dhivakar"
    },
    {
      "name": "William Harvey"
    },
    {
      "name": "Victor Ivo"
    },
    {
      "name": "Kristan Jensen"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a5vnzx876ezms.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.23743",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "a5vnzx876ezms",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.23743",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "hep-th"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3106|Black Holes and Theoretical Physics"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7222918955",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.23743",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-16",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a5vnzx876ezms.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:30:32Z",
      "native_id": "2610.23743",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.23743"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:hep-th",
      "subfield": "high-energy"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Runaways in the no-boundary wavefunction",
  "title_text": "Runaways in the no-boundary wavefunction",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:33:28Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a5vnzx876ezms",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}