- The paper examines the perturbative stability of axion-saxion wormholes using both two-form gauge and scalar formulations, finding them stable.
- The analysis confirms axion-saxion wormholes are perturbatively stable, identifying no negative modes, and corrects errors in previous studies regarding boundary conditions.
- These findings have significant implications for Euclidean quantum gravity, suggesting stable wormholes can be treated in gravitational path integrals and providing a base for future work in various theoretical physics extensions.
Stability of Axion-Saxion Wormholes: A Perturbative Analysis
The paper "Stability of Axion-Saxion Wormholes" by Hertog et al. examines the perturbative stability of Euclidean wormholes supported by axion fields. This research is crucial for understanding the non-perturbative aspects of quantum gravity and addresses significant discrepancies in previous stability analyses.
Overview of Euclidean Axion Wormholes
The focus is on axion wormholes, particularly Giddings-Strominger-type solutions, which have been of interest in quantum gravity due to their potential to elucidate global symmetry-breaking phenomena. The paper revisits the stability using both two-form gauge and Hodge-dual scalar formulations of the axion field, ensuring a comprehensive analysis across dual frames.
Theoretical Framework and Methodology
Axion wormholes are modeled within Euclidean gravity frameworks, both with and without a coupled massless dilaton (saxion) field. The wormhole solutions are explored using rotationally invariant metrics, and the quadratic actions describing linear perturbations are derived.
Both scalar perturbations and their two-form counterparts are considered to assess stability, distinguishing between homogeneous and inhomogeneous modes. The paper carefully scrutinizes boundary conditions, a pivotal factor contributing to earlier conflicting results in the literature.
Key Results
- Stability Confirmation: The analysis finds that axion wormholes remain perturbatively stable even in the presence of massive axion fields and in the axion-saxion combined context. No negative modes were identified, contradiction to earlier claims.
- Boundary Conditions Re-evaluation: The paper addresses errors in prior studies regarding boundary conditions, highlighting how corrections align the findings across both Hodge-dual frame analyses. The correct treatment shows consistency in the nature of axion charge and dilaton fluctuations across different formalisms.
- Numerical and Analytical Consistency: The employment of boundary-accurate Sturm-Liouville problems further solidifies the absence of negative modes, with calculations verifying that wormholes sustain stable configurations under small perturbations.
Implications and Future Prospects
These findings have significant implications for understanding Euclidean aspects of quantum gravity and the role wormholes might play therein. The stable nature of these configurations could integrate into more extensive models in theoretical physics, tackling longstanding questions around non-factorization in quantum gravity and AdS/CFT correspondences.
Future work could explore various extensions:
- Inclusion of broader sigma models to assess generality across different field contexts.
- Consideration of wormholes under non-zero cosmological constants, particularly in AdS settings.
- Examining the effects of dilaton masses or further incorporating potential supersymmetric scenarios to see how stability might toggle under these influences.
This work clarifies the status of axion-saxion wormholes within theoretical frameworks and provides a solid base for how they may be treated as stable entities in gravitational path integrals.