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Midisuperspace Foam

ORAL

Abstract

I describe a midisuperspace -- a model for quantum gravity in which most of the degrees of freedom are frozen out -- that is rich enough to allow a version of Wheeler's spacetime foam. In this setting the Wheeler-DeWitt equation becomes tractable, and there is strong evidence that wave functions can be nearly time independent even in the presence of a large cosmological constant, with expansion in some regions balanced by contraction in others.

Publication: "Midisuperspace foam and the cosmological constant," arXiv:2106.09751 [gr-qc], to appear in Class. Quant. Grav.

Presenters

  • Steven J Carlip

    University of California, Davis

Authors

  • Steven J Carlip

    University of California, Davis