Space-time foam and the cosmological constant
Aug, 19977 pages
Published in:
- Phys.Rev.Lett. 79 (1997) 4071-4074
e-Print:
- gr-qc/9708026 [gr-qc]
Report number:
- UCD-97-19
Citations per year
Abstract: (arXiv)
In the saddle point approximation, the Euclidean path integral for quantum gravity closely resembles a thermodynamic partition function, with the cosmological constant playing the role of temperature and the ``density of topologies'' acting as an effective density of states. For , the density of topologies grows superexponentially, and the sum over topologies diverges. In thermodynamics, such a divergence can signal the existence of a maximum temperature. The same may be true in quantum gravity: the effective cosmological constant may be driven to zero by a rapid rise in the density of topologies.- quantum gravity: Euclidean
- path integral
- cosmological constant
- topology: density
- thermodynamics
- saddle-point approximation
References(15)
Figures(0)