Baby-universe state dependence of the wormhole-induced gravi-axion mass gap
Abstract
Euclidean wormholes can break the axion shift symmetry, and when this symmetry is broken, a periodic potential is created for the axion, and the curvature of this potential at a minimum point can give the axion mass. In this work, we take seriously the assumption that the mere existence of a wormhole does not mean that the axion mass is uniquely determined, and that more information is needed to determine it. We first show that since for a Giddings--Strominger wormhole with symmetry O(4), the gravitational Pontryagin density is zero, the dynamical Chern--Simons interaction can affect quantum effects, including the determinant phase and fermionic selection rules, without changing the classical wormhole action. We also conclude that in a fixed α sector, the axion can have a specific mass, but this mass depends on the baby-universe state and is not a universal value. Then, for the mixed case of α sectors that give a distribution of conditional masses, we show that the lower edge of the averaged spectral measure is determined by the essential infimum of the conditional mass squared over the α distribution. Finally, we conclude that even if almost all individual sectors are massive and the mean mass squared is also non-zero, if the support of the measure accumulates at the symmetric point α=0, the averaged spectral measure will be gapless. To clarify the discussion, we consider a clear example of this situation, which can be a Gaussian baby-universe state, and show that in it the spectral threshold starts at zero and there is no isolated massive pole. Therefore, predicting the mass and cosmology of a gravi-axion from a wormhole without specifying the baby-universe state is not a unique, state-independent prediction.
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BibTeX
@misc{akbarieh2026babyuniverse,
title = {{Baby-universe state dependence of the wormhole-induced gravi-axion mass gap}},
author = {Amin Rezaei Akbarieh},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.04191},
eprint = {2609.04191},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04191},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Baby-universe state dependence of the wormhole-induced gravi-axion mass gap
AU - Amin Rezaei Akbarieh
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.04191
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04191
AB - Euclidean wormholes can break the axion shift symmetry, and when this symmetry is broken, a periodic potential is created for the axion, and the curvature of this potential at a minimum point can give the axion mass. In this work, we take seriously the assumption that the mere existence of a wormhole does not mean that the axion mass is uniquely determined, and that more information is needed to determine it. We first show that since for a Giddings--Strominger wormhole with symmetry O(4), the gravitational Pontryagin density is zero, the dynamical Chern--Simons interaction can affect quantum effects, including the determinant phase and fermionic selection rules, without changing the classical wormhole action. We also conclude that in a fixed α sector, the axion can have a specific mass, but this mass depends on the baby-universe state and is not a universal value. Then, for the mixed case of α sectors that give a distribution of conditional masses, we show that the lower edge of the averaged spectral measure is determined by the essential infimum of the conditional mass squared over the α distribution. Finally, we conclude that even if almost all individual sectors are massive and the mean mass squared is also non-zero, if the support of the measure accumulates at the symmetric point α=0, the averaged spectral measure will be gapless. To clarify the discussion, we consider a clear example of this situation, which can be a Gaussian baby-universe state, and show that in it the spectral threshold starts at zero and there is no isolated massive pole. Therefore, predicting the mass and cosmology of a gravi-axion from a wormhole without specifying the baby-universe state is not a unique, state-independent prediction.
ER -