We investigate the nonperturbative quantization of phantom and ghost degrees of freedom by relating their representations in definite and indefinite inner product spaces. For a large class of potentials, we argue that the same physical information can be extracted from either representation. We provide a definition of the path integral for these theories, even in cases where the integrand may be exponentially unbounded, thereby removing some previous obstacles to their nonperturbative study. We apply our results to the study of ghost fields of Pauli–Villars and Lee–Wick type, and we show in the context of a toy model how to derive, from an exact nonperturbative path integral calculation, previously ad hoc prescriptions for Feynman diagram contour integrals in the presence of complex energies. We point out that the pole prescriptions obtained in ghost theories are opposite to what would have been expected if one had added conventional i∊ convergence factors in the path integral.
Also related to the cosmological constant problem is the paper @cite_11 , which introduces phantom fields to cancel the ordinary matter contribution to the vacuum energy. Again, our non-perturbative approach to phantom fields may be useful in the study of these models.
@cite_11
1983032885 2962921156 2008434812 2004482079
We study a symmetry, schematically Energy → — Energy, which suppresses matter contributions to the cosmological constant. The requisite negative energy fluctuations are identified with a ghost'' copy of the Standard Model. Gravity explicitly, but weakly, violates the symmetry, and naturalness requires General Relativity to break down at short distances with testable consequences. If this breakdown is accompanied by gravitational Lorentz-violation, the decay of flat spacetime by ghost production is acceptably slow. We show that inflation works in our scenario and can lead to the initial conditions required for standard Big Bang cosmology. In this article, we study small perturbations of the family of Friedmann–Lemaitre–Robertson–Walker cosmological background solutions to the 1 + 3 dimensional Euler–Einstein system with a positive cosmological constant. These background solutions describe an initially uniform quiet fluid of positive energy density evolving in a spacetime undergoing accelerated expansion. Our nonlinear analysis shows that under the equation of state ( p = c^2_s ) , ( 0 < c^2_s < 1 3 ) , the background solutions are globally future-stable. In particular, we prove that the perturbed spacetime solutions, which have the topological structure ( [0, ) T ^3 ) , are future-causally geodesically complete. These results are extensions of previous results derived by the author in a collaboration with I. Rodnianski, in which the fluid was assumed to be irrotational. Our novel analysis of a fluid with non-zero vorticity is based on the use of suitably defined energy currents. In this paper we study a new symmetry argument that results in a vacuum state with strictly vanishing vacuum energy. This argument exploits the well-known feature that de Sitter and Anti- de Sitter space are related by analytic continuation. When we drop boundary and hermiticity conditions on quantum fields, we get as many negative as positive energy states, which are related by transformations to complex space. The paper does not directly solve the cosmological constant problem, but explores a new direction that appears worthwhile. We consider a spherically symmetric, double characteristic initial value problem for the (real) Einstein-Maxwell-scalar field equations. On the initial outgoing characteristic, the data is assumed to satisfy the Price law decay widely believed to hold on an event horizon arising from the collapse of an asymptotically flat Cauchy surface. We establish that the heuristic mass inflation scenario put forth by Israel and Poisson is mathematically correct in the context of this initial value problem. In particular, the maximal future development has a future boundary over which the space-time is extendible as a C0 metric but along which the Hawking mass blows up identically; thus, the space-time is inextendible as a C1 metric. In view of recent results of the author in collaboration with I. Rodnianski, which rigorously establish the validity of Price's law as an upper bound for the decay of scalar field hair, the C0 extendibility result applies to the collapse of complete, asymptotically flat, spacelike initial data where the scalar field is compactly supported. This shows that under Christodoulou's C0 formulation, the strong cosmic censorship conjecture is false for this system. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.