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Published March 15, 2006 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Baby universes in string theory

Abstract

We argue that the holographic description of four-dimensional Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield black holes naturally includes multicenter solutions. This suggests that the holographic dual to the gauge theory is not a single AdS2×S2 but a coherent ensemble of them. We verify this in a particular class of examples, where the two-dimensional Yang-Mills theory gives a holographic description of the black holes obtained by branes wrapping Calabi-Yau cycles. Using the free fermionic formulation, we show that O(e-N) nonperturbative effects entangle the two Fermi surfaces. In an Euclidean description, the wave function of the multicenter black holes gets mapped to the Hartle-Hawking wave function of baby universes. This provides a concrete realization, within string theory, of effects that can be interpreted as the creation of baby universes. We find that, at least in the case we study, the baby universes do not lead to a loss of quantum coherence, in accord with general arguments.

Additional Information

© 2006 The American Physical Society (Received 7 October 2005; published 10 March 2006) We would like to thank A. Adams, M. Aganagic, F. Denef, D. Gaiotto, D. Gross, G. Horowitz, R. Kallosh, M. Kardar, A. Linde, A. Maloney, J. Maldacena, G. Moore, L. Motl, J. Polchinski, J. Preskill, E. Silverstein, A. Strominger, and E. Verlinde for useful discussions. R.D. and H.O. want to thank the Harvard Physics Department for kind hospitality. H.O. also thanks the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Amsterdam for kind hospitality. The research of R.D. was supported by a NWO Spinoza grant and the FOM program String Theory and Quantum Gravity. R.G.'s research has been generously supported by the citizens of India. The research of H.O. was supported in part by DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-92-ER40701. The research of C.V. was supported in part by NSF Grants No. PHY-0244821 and No. DMS-0244464.

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