Further improvements in the understanding of isotropic loop quantum cosmology

The flat, homogeneous, and isotropic universe with a massless scalar field is a paradigmatic model in loop quantum cosmology. In spite of the prominent role that the model has played in the development of this branch of physics, there still remain some aspects of its quantization which deserve a more detailed discussion. These aspects include the kinematical resolution of the cosmological singularity, the precise relation between the solutions of the densitized and nondensitized versions of the quantum Hamiltonian constraint, the possibility of identifying superselection sectors which are as simple as possible, and a clear comprehension of the Wheeler-DeWitt (WDW) limit associated with the theory in those sectors. We propose an alternative operator to represent the Hamiltonian constraint which is specially suitable to deal with all these issues in a detailed and satisfactory way. In particular, with our constraint operator, the singularity decouples in the kinematical Hilbert space and can be removed already at this level. Thanks to this fact, we can densitize the quantum Hamiltonian constraint in a well-controlled manner. Additionally, together with the physical observables, this constraint superselects simple sectors for the universe volume, with a discrete support contained in a single semiaxis of the real line and for which the basic functions that encode the information about the geometry possess optimal physical properties. Namely, they provide a no-boundary description around the cosmological singularity and admit a well-defined WDW limit in terms of standing waves. Both properties explain the presence of a generic quantum bounce replacing the classical singularity at a fundamental level, in contrast with previous studies where the bounce was proved in concrete regimes—focusing on states with a marked semiclassical behavior—or for a simplified model.