f Universes” us Creation. Alexander Vilenkin Physics Department, Tufts University Medford, MA 02155, U.S.A. ABSTRACT I discuss a cosmological model in which the universe is created by quantum tunneling fron “nothing" into a de Sitter space. The tunneling is described semiclassically using de Sitter-Hawking-Moss instanton. After the tunneling the universe evolves along the lines of the new inflationary scenario. This mode? does not have a big bang singularity and does not require any initial or boundary conditions. “this research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY 8206202.Modern cosmology gives an evolutionary picture of the universe. It aims to describe how the universe has evolved to its present state trom a certain initial state. ‘The differential equations describing the evolution are derived from known laws of physics; however, there are no laws determining the initial conditions. This seems to indicate that our understanding of the universe is bound to be incomplete: we will have to say, in effect, that the universe is what it is because it was what it was. In addition, there As another grave problem - the cosmological singularity. ‘The whole theory breaks down at the big bang, indicating that we need some new principles an order to understand how the universe came into being. In this essay 1 shall discuss @ model in which the universe is spontaneously created by quantum tunneling from "nothing". This model does not have a big bang Singularity and does not require any initial or boundary conditions. Tryon! was the first to point out that all strictly conserved quantum numbers of a closed universe can be equal to zero, and so the whole universe can be a vacuum fluctuation (see also Ref. 2). More recently, Brout et al.?, Atkate and Pagels*, and Gott? discussed nonsingular cosmological models in which the role of the big bang is played by a quantum event due to some sort of quantum instability of a simple initial state (flate space’, closed static universe” or de Sitter space”). A weak point of this picture is that the universe could not stay tn its initial state indefinitely long if that state is metastable. Then we are faced with the question of how did the universe get into that state and what did it do before that. The model discussed in this essay® is similar to the Tryon's picture, but it goes further in that it gives mathematical description of the tunneling process and determines the initial conditions at the moment of nucleation.We shall consider a model of interacting gravitational and matter fields. For simplicity, the matter fields will be represented by a single Higgs field @ with an effective potential Vig). If § = 0 1s the true minimum ot the effective potential, then we require that Vig) ¥ 0, so that the cosmological constant is small today. Besides ¢ = 0, Vig) can have other extrema. If $= 4, is such an extremum, ¥4(9,) = 0, then = 4, = const is a solution of the classical equation of motion for ¢, Gerveis =o. m ‘The vacuum energy density at g = 4, will, in general, be nonzero (and positive) y SVG) = Our model will be based on a solution of the combined Einstein and scalar f1eld equations in which @ = ¢, and the gravitational field is described by a closed Robertson-Walker metric, do? = dt? - a2 (e) ([dy?4sin2y (a6? +sin? 6ag2) ) @ The scale factor a(t) satisfies the equation a += waz, &) where H (excp,/3)? ta ‘he solution of Eq. (3) is the de Sitter space, a(t) = # Teoshthe). ©) It describes a universe which contracts at t <0, then "bounces" at a minimum size a). =H", and expands at t > 0. This behavior is analogousto that of a particle bouncing off a potential barrier at a= W7!. we know that in quantum mechanics particles can tunnel through potential barriers; this suggests that the birth of the universe could be a quantum tunneling event. Then the universe has emerged at the bounce point having a finite size (a= #7) and zero "velocity" (4 = 0); its following evolution 18 described by Bq. (5) with ¢ > 0. A semiclassical description of quantum tunneling 1s given by the bounce solution of the Euclidean field equations’. In our case, the bounce solution can be obtained by changing t + -it in Eq. (5) (1 is the Euclidean time} -1 ain = Ht tcosHn. (6) It describes a four-sphere, S*, This is the well-known de Sitter instanton. ‘The solution (6) bounces at the classical turning point, a = #7 !, which indicates that it describes a tunneling to de Sitter space (5). However, it does not approach any initial state at 1+ *~, in fact, s* is a compact space and the bounce solution (6) is defined only for |t| s1/24. The mstanton (6) can be interpreted as describing a tunneling to the de Sitter space (5) from nothing, where by nothing I mean a State with no classical space- time.” “Nothing" is the realm of unrestrainted quantum gravity; it is a pre- geometric state in which all our basic notions of space, time, energy, entropy, etc., lose their meaning. This does not mean, however, that cosmic “one can speculate that the relevant mathematical object describing the “nothing-nothing* amplitude is a functional integral of exp(-s) over ¢ and over all compact Euclidean metrics. “(Such an integral has been discussed by Hawking? in a different context).tunneling cannot be described without complete understanding of guantum gravity. The curvature of the instanton solution (6) is R= 12H2, and we expect quantum gravitational corrections to be small, as Jong ax H << m. im, is the Planck mass.) Although the situation we are discussing is rather bizarre, we shall try to keep as close analogy with “normal” tunneling effects’ as possible and make the following conjectures. (4) A compact instanton describes a tunneling from "nothing" if it is a saddle point of the Buclidean action S. (i.e, if the second variational derivative g?5 has a negative mode.) (ii) The relative frequency of universes created by tunneling through different compact instantons is proportional to exp (-S), where $ is the action for the corresponding instanton. (Here, if not before, we boldly enter the range of metaphysics.) The Euclidean action for our model is 8 = -(16x6)"! savgd*x + sa, 912 + Vio) 1YERx mM For the instanton solution (6) this gives® (3) 4 3/80. Gibbons and Perry’ studies the behavior of S under small variations of the metric and found that the operator 83S for the de Sitter instanton has no physically significant negative modes. ‘This means that our instanton can describe quantum tunneling only if the operator 848 has @ negative eigenvalue. Obviously, the gradient terms can only increase the action, and we can restrict ourselves to homogeneous perturbations of . For such perturbations,ays = vay Gs and the operator 6#5 has a negative mode if and only if V"($,) € 0, that 1s, if g, is @ local mm of the effective potential. If, according to conjecture (11), we assume that the “nucleation probability” is proportional to exp (-S), then, for an effective potential with several maxima, most of the universes will nucleate with ¢ at the maximum with the smallest value of py (see Ba. (8)). The de Sitter instanton with the Higgs field at @ maximum of Vig) was first discussed by Hawking and Moss'?, who interpreted it as describing a tunneling event in which ¢ jumps from ¢ = 0 to § = §, and the Hubble constant jumps from 8"GV(0)/3 to H = 81GV($,)/3 simultaneously in the entire universe. However, the maximal spatial section of the metric (9) has size #!, and it is hard to see how it can tell what happens to the universe outside the horizon. “Creation from nothing" appears to be a more natural interpretation of the Hawking-voss instanton. After the nucleation the universe can evolve along the Lines of the new inflationary scenario!?, Quantum fluctuations drive the Higgs field away from = 45: When 6 gets far enough from 4, the slope of the effective potential becomes important, and @ starts “rolling down". In order to have large inflation, we have to require that -v"(g) <¢H?, As > reaches the true minimum of Vig), the vacuum energy thermalizes and the universe heats up to a vonperature Ts p4. 10 our node! this is the maxinun temperature the Universe has ever haa. The ideas discussed in this essay are of metaphysical nature: they are not subject to direct experimental tests and can only be tested by an overall consistency of our picture of the universe. The advantages of the scenario6. presented here are mostly aesthetic. It gives a cosmalogicad mode) which does not have a big bang singularity snd does not require any initial or boundary conditions. The structure and evolution of the universe(s) are completely determined by the laws of physics. I am grateful to Alan Guth, Garry Gibbons, and especially to Malcolm Perry for illuminating discussions.10. a. 12. ‘Tryon, B-P. (1973) Nature 396. Albrow, M.G. (1973) Nature 241, 56. Brout, &., Englert, F. and Gunzig, E. (1978) Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 115, 78 Atkatz, D. and Pagels, H. (1982) Phys. Rev. D25, 2065. Gott, J.R. (1982) Nature 2 304. Vélenkin, A. (1982) Phys. Lett. BII7, 25. Coleman, S. (1979) in The Whys of Subnuclear Physics; ed. A. Zichichi, Plenum, NY. Gibbons, G.W. and Hawking, $.W. (1977) Phys. Rev. DIS, 2738. Hawking, S.W. (1979) in General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey; eds. $.W. Hawking and W. Israel, Cambridge University Press. Gibbons, G.W. and Perry, M.J. (1978) Nucl. Phys. B146, 90. Hawking, S.W. and Moss, 1.6. (1982) Phys. Lett. BL1o, 35. Guth, AH. (1981) Phys. Rev, 023, 347; Linde, A.D. (1982) Phys. Lett. BiB, 389; Albrecht, A. and Steinhardt, P.J. (1982) Phys. Rev. Lett. 48, 1220.