Boundary conditions and Hilbert spaces in no-roll quantum cosmology
Abstract
We construct Hilbert spaces for the minisuperspace quantum cosmology of a closed Universe in the limit of extreme slow-roll inflation, in which the scalar field is approximated as constant. In this setting, the potential energy in the scalar field is an integration constant depending on initial conditions, equivalent to the cosmological constant as it appears in unimodular gravity. If one fixes the value of this integration constant, the Wheeler-DeWitt equation admits two independent solutions, and a natural inner product picks out one of them (essentially Vilenkin's tunnelling wavefunction) with positive norm. The physical Hilbert space is then one-dimensional, in agreement with some recent discussions of closed universes in quantum gravity. However, if the potential energy is left arbitrary, the theory allows for an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space corresponding to energy eigenstates of an effective Hamiltonian. Requiring that this Hamiltonian be represented as a self-adjoint operator leads to a one-parameter family of boundary conditions at the singularity, generalising the DeWitt criterion of a vanishing wavefunction. The boundary condition always leads to a mixture of Hartle-Hawking (no-boundary) and tunnelling wavefunctions, but a particular choice "almost" singles out the Hartle-Hawking wavefunction, with exponentially suppressed corrections.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{gielen2026boundary,
title = {{Boundary conditions and Hilbert spaces in no-roll quantum cosmology}},
author = {Steffen Gielen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.17163},
eprint = {2606.17163},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.17163},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Boundary conditions and Hilbert spaces in no-roll quantum cosmology
AU - Steffen Gielen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/15
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.17163
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.17163
AB - We construct Hilbert spaces for the minisuperspace quantum cosmology of a closed Universe in the limit of extreme slow-roll inflation, in which the scalar field is approximated as constant. In this setting, the potential energy in the scalar field is an integration constant depending on initial conditions, equivalent to the cosmological constant as it appears in unimodular gravity. If one fixes the value of this integration constant, the Wheeler-DeWitt equation admits two independent solutions, and a natural inner product picks out one of them (essentially Vilenkin's tunnelling wavefunction) with positive norm. The physical Hilbert space is then one-dimensional, in agreement with some recent discussions of closed universes in quantum gravity. However, if the potential energy is left arbitrary, the theory allows for an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space corresponding to energy eigenstates of an effective Hamiltonian. Requiring that this Hamiltonian be represented as a self-adjoint operator leads to a one-parameter family of boundary conditions at the singularity, generalising the DeWitt criterion of a vanishing wavefunction. The boundary condition always leads to a mixture of Hartle-Hawking (no-boundary) and tunnelling wavefunctions, but a particular choice "almost" singles out the Hartle-Hawking wavefunction, with exponentially suppressed corrections.
ER -