Determine the robustness of the wormhole results beyond the truncated theory

Determine which properties of the complex Gauss–Bonnet wormholes, their imaginary endpoint displacement, and their associated actions survive when higher-curvature operators and more general scalar couplings are included beyond the four-derivative truncated effective action.

Background

The analysis uses a four-dimensional theory containing the Einstein–Hilbert term, a massless scalar, and a linear scalar coupling to the Gauss–Bonnet invariant. The authors emphasize that the branch endpoint lies where the Gauss–Bonnet correction is no longer parametrically small, so higher-order curvature terms may become relevant.

The effect of additional higher-curvature operators and more general scalar interactions on the branch structure, KSW allowability, imaginary distance threshold, and renormalized AdS displacement is therefore explicitly left unresolved.