Superluminal Liouville walls in 2d String Theory and space-like singularities

Abstract: An interesting class of time dependent backgrounds in $1+1$ dimensional string theory involves worldsheet Liouville walls which move in (target space) time. When a parameter in such a background exceeds a certain critical value, the speed of the Liouville wall exceeds the speed of light, and there is no usual S-Matrix. We examine such backgrounds in the dual $c=1$ matrix model from the point of view of fluctuations of the collective field, and determine the nature of the emergent space-time perceived by these fluctuations. We show that so long as the corresponding Liouville wall remains time-like, the emergent space time is conformal to full Minkowski space with a time-like wall. However, for the cases where the Liouville wall is superluminal, the emergent space-time has a {\em space-like boundary} where the collective field couplings diverge. This appears as a space-like singularity in perturbative collective field theory. We comment on the necessity of incorporating finite $N$, as well as finite (double-scaled) coupling, effects to understand the behavior of the exact theory near this boundary.