Gravitational waves in open de Sitter space

S. W. Hawking, Thomas Hertog, and Neil Turok
Phys. Rev. D 62, 063502 – Published 31 July 2000
An article within the collection: The Work of Stephen Hawking in Physical Review
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Abstract

We compute the spectrum of primordial gravitational wave perturbations in open de Sitter spacetime. The background spacetime is taken to be the continuation of an O(5) symmetric instanton saddle point of the Euclidean no boundary path integral. The two-point tensor fluctuations are computed directly from the Euclidean path integral. The Euclidean correlator is then analytically continued into the Lorentzian region where it describes the quantum mechanical vacuum fluctuations of the graviton field. Unlike the results of earlier work, the correlator is shown to be unique and well behaved in the infrared. We show that the infrared divergence found in previous calculations is due to the contribution of a discrete gauge mode inadvertently included in the spectrum.

  • Received 24 March 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.62.063502

©2000 American Physical Society

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This article appears in the following collection:

The Work of Stephen Hawking in Physical Review

To mark the passing of Stephen Hawking, we gathered together his 55 papers in Physical Review D and Physical Review Letters. They probe the edges of space and time, from "Black holes and thermodynamics” to "Wave function of the Universe."

Authors & Affiliations

S. W. Hawking*, Thomas Hertog, and Neil Turok

  • DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, United Kingdom

  • *Email address: S.W.Hawking@damtp.cam.ac.uk
  • Email address: T.Hertog@damtp.cam.ac.uk
  • Email address: N.G.Turok@damtp.cam.ac.uk

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Vol. 62, Iss. 6 — 15 September 2000

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