Complex geodesics in de Sitter space
- Resource Type
- article
- Authors
- Shira Chapman; Damián A. Galante; Eleanor Harris; Sameer U. Sheorey; David Vegh
- Source
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol 2023, Iss 3, Pp 1-29 (2023)
- Subject
- AdS-CFT Correspondence
de Sitter space
Nuclear and particle physics. Atomic energy. Radioactivity
QC770-798
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 1029-8479
Abstract The two-point function of a free massive scalar field on a fixed background can be evaluated in the large mass limit by using a semiclassical geodesic approximation. In de Sitter space, however, this poses a puzzle. Certain spacelike separated points are not connected by real geodesics despite the corresponding two-point function in the Bunch-Davies state being non-vanishing. We resolve this puzzle by considering complex geodesics after analytically continuing to the sphere. We compute one-loop corrections to the correlator and discuss the implications of our results to de Sitter holography.