Wormholes as a basis for the Hilbert space in Lorentzian gravity

Guillermo A. Mena Marugán
Phys. Rev. D 50, 3923 – Published 15 September 1994
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Abstract

We carry out to completion the quantization of a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker model provided with a conformal scalar field, and of a Kantowski-Sachs spacetime minimally coupled to a massless scalar field. We prove that the Hilbert space determined by the reality conditions that correspond to Lorentzian gravity admits a basis of wormhole wave functions. This result implies that the vector space spanned by the quantum wormholes can be equipped with a unique inner product by demanding an adequate set of Lorentzian reality conditions, and that the Hilbert space of wormholes obtained in this way can be identified with the whole Hilbert space of physical states for Lorentzian gravity. In particular, all the normalizable quantum states can then be interpreted as superpositions of wormholes. For each of the models considered here, we finally show that the physical Hilbert space is separable by constructing a discrete orthonormal basis of wormhole solutions.

  • Received 9 May 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.50.3923

©1994 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Guillermo A. Mena Marugán

  • Instituto de Matemáticas y Física Fundamental, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Serrano 121, 28006 Madrid, Spain
  • Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry, Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802

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Vol. 50, Iss. 6 — 15 September 1994

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