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# Why Does Inflation Start at the Top of the Hill?

## I Introduction

Structure and complexity have developed in our universe, because it is out of equilibrium. This feature shows up in all known cosmological scenarios for the early universe, which rely on gravitational instability to generate local inhomogeneities from an almost homogeneous and isotropic state for the universe. Inflation seems the best explanation for this homogeneous and isotropic state because whatever drives the inflation will remove the local instability and iron out irregularities. However the inflationary expansion has to be globally unstable because otherwise it would continue forever and galaxies would never form.

The instability can be described as the evolution of an order parameter $`\varphi `$ which can be treated as a scalar field with effective potential $`V(\varphi )`$. If $`V^{}/V`$ is small, $`\varphi `$ will roll slowly down the potential and the universe will inflate by a large factor. However, this raises the question: Why did the universe start with a high value of the potential? Why didn’t $`\varphi `$ start at the global minimum of $`V`$?

There have been various attempts to explain why $`\varphi `$ started high on the potential hill. In the old  and new  inflationary scenarios the universe was supposed to start with infinite temperature at a singularity. As the universe expanded and cooled, thermal corrections would make the effective potential time dependent. So even if $`\varphi `$ started in the minimum of $`V`$, it could still end up in a metastable false vacuum state (in old inflation) or at a local maximum of $`V`$ (in new inflation). The scalar field was then supposed to tunnel through the potential barrier or just fall off the top of the hill and slowly roll down. However both scenarios tended to predict a more inhomogeneous universe than we observe. They were also unsatisfactory because they assumed an initial singularity and a fairly homogeneous and isotropic pre-inflation hot big bang phase. Why not just assume the singularity produced the standard hot big bang, since we don’t have a measure on the space of singular initial conditions for the universe?

In the chaotic inflation scenario , quantum fluctuations of $`\varphi `$ are supposed to drive the volume weighted average $`\varphi `$ up the potential hill, leading to everlasting eternal inflation. However this effect is dependent on using the synchronous gauge: in other gauges the volume weighted average of the potential can go down. Looking from a 4 rather than 3+1 dimensional perspective, it is clear that the quantum fluctuations of a single scalar field are insufficient to drive de Sitter like eternal inflation, if the de Sitter space is larger than the Planck length. Eternal inflation may be possible at the Planck scale, but all our methods would break down in this situation so it would mean that we could not analyze the origin of the universe.

The aim of this paper however is to show that the universe can come into being and start inflating without the need for an initial hot big bang phase or Planck curvature. It is required that the potential $`V`$ has a local maximum which is below the Planck density and sufficiently flat on top, $`V^{\prime \prime }/V>4/3`$. This last condition means only the homogeneous mode of the scalar field is tachyonic: the higher modes all have positive eigenvalues. It also means there isn’t a Coleman-De Luccia solution  describing quantum tunneling from a false vacuum on one side of the maximum to the true vacuum on the other side. Instead there is only a homogeneous Hawking-Moss instanton  that sits on the top of the hill, at the local maximum of $`V`$.

It has long been a problem to understand how the universe could decay from a false vacuum in this situation. The Hawking-Moss instanton does not interpolate between the false and true vacua, because it is constant in space and time. Instead, what must happen is that the original universe can continue in the false vacuum state but that new completely disconnected universes can form at the top of the hill via Hawking-Moss instantons. For someone in one of these new universes, the universe in the false vacuum is irrelevant and can be ignored.

The top of the hill might seem the least likely place for the universe to start. However we shall show it is the most likely place for an inflationary universe to begin, if $`V^{\prime \prime }/V>4/3`$. The reason is that although being at the top of the hill costs potential action, the saving of gradient action from having a constant scalar field is greater. Thus inflation will start at the top of the hill. In particular, this justifies Starobinsky’s scenario of trace anomaly inflation, in which the universe starts in an unstable de Sitter state supported by the conformal anomaly of a large number of conformally coupled matter fields .

The usual approach to the problem of initial conditions for inflation, is to assume some initial configuration for the universe, and evolve it forward in time. This could be described as the bottom up approach to cosmology. It is an essentially classical picture, because it assumes there is a single well defined metric for the universe. By contrast, here we adopt a quantum approach, based on the no boundary proposal , which states that the amplitude for an observable like the 3-metric on a spacelike hypersurface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, is given by a path integral over all metrics whose only boundary is $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The quantum origin of our universe and the no boundary proposal naturally lead to a top down view of the universe, in which the histories that contribute to the path integral, depend on the observable being measured.

We study the quantum cosmological origin of an expanding universe in theories like trace anomaly inflation, by investigating the semiclassical predictions of the no boundary proposal for the wave function of interest. One may argue that a clearer picture of the pre-inflationary conditions can only emerge from a deeper understanding of quantum gravity at the Planck scale. However, the amplitude of the cosmic microwave temperature anisotropies indicates that the universe may always have been much larger than the Planck scale. This suggests it might be possible to describe the origin of our universe within the semiclassical regime of quantum cosmology. Correspondingly, the effective potential must have a local maximum well below the Planck density, which is the case in the trace anomaly model.

The paper is organised as follows. In section 2 we review trace anomaly driven inflation, since this provides an important theoretical motivation for inflation. We study the quantum cosmology of the trace anomaly model and discuss the role of a special class of instanton saddle-points of the no boundary path integral, which can be analytically continued to Lorentzian universes. In section 3 we consider perturbations in anomaly-induced inflation and show that the instability of the inflationary phase can be described by a scalar field with an effective potential with a local maximum. We also discuss homogeneous fluctuations about the instanton backgrounds and touch briefly on the effect of quantum matter on the spectrum of microwave fluctuations predicted by anomaly-induced inflation. In section 4, we consider a general model of inflation with an effective potential that has a local maximum. We show that according to the no boundary proposal, provided the instability is sufficiently weak, an expanding universe is most likely to start at the top of the hill, in a de Sitter state. Finally, in section 5 we present our conclusions.

## II Trace Anomaly Driven Inflation

### A Large $`N`$ Cosmology

It has been argued that the theoretical foundations for inflation are weak, since it has proven difficult to realise inflation in classical M-theory. A large class of supergravity theories admit no warped de Sitter compactifications on a compact, static internal space  and although some gauged $`N=8`$ and $`N=4`$ supergravities in $`D=4`$ do permit de Sitter vacua , these vacua are too unstable for a significant period of inflation to occur. However, an appealing way to evade the no go theorems is to include higher derivative quantum corrections to the classical supergravity equations, such as the trace anomaly.

Since we observe a large number of matter fields in the universe, it is natural to consider the large $`N`$ approximation . In the large $`N`$ approximation, one performs the path integral over the matter fields in a given background to obtain an effective action that is a functional of the background metric,

$$\mathrm{exp}(W[𝐠])=d[\varphi ]\mathrm{exp}(S[\varphi ;𝐠]).$$
(2.1)
In the leading-order $`1/N`$ approximation, one can neglect graviton loops and look for a stationary point of the effective action for the matter fields combined with the gravitational action. This is equivalent to solving the Einstein equations with the source being the expectation value of the matter energy-momentum tensor derived from $`W`$,

$$R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}Rg_{\mu \nu }=8\pi GT_{\mu \nu }.$$
(2.2)
The expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor is generally non-local and depends on the quantum state. However, during inflation, particle masses are small compared with the spacetime curvature, $`R>>m^2`$, and in asymptotically free gauge theories, interactions become negligible in the same limit. Therefore, at the high curvatures during inflation, the energy-momentum tensor of a large class of grand unified theories is to a good approximation given by the expectation value $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ of a large number of free, massless, conformally invariant fields***For simplicity, it is assumed that scalar fields become conformally coupled at high energies, but the contribution of the interaction terms to $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ is small at high curvature, as long as the couplings don’t become very large .. The entire one-loop contribution to the trace of the energy-momentum tensor then comes from the conformal anomaly , which is given for a general CFT by the following equation,

$$g^{\mu \nu }T_{\mu \nu }=cFaG+\alpha ^{}^2R,$$
(2.3)
where $`F`$ is the square of the Weyl tensor, $`G`$ is proportional to the Euler density and the constants $`a,c`$ and $`\alpha ^{}`$ are given in terms of the field content of the CFT by

$$a=\frac{1}{360(4\pi )^2}\left(N_S+11N_F+62N_V\right),$$
(2.4)
$$c=\frac{1}{120(4\pi )^2}\left(N_S+6N_F+12N_V\right),$$
(2.5)
$$\alpha ^{}=\frac{1}{180(4\pi )^2}\left(N_S+6N_F18N_V\right),$$
(2.6)
with $`N_S`$ the number of real scalar fields, $`N_F`$ the number of Dirac fermions and $`N_V`$ the number of vector fieldsWe have quoted the value for $`\alpha ^{}`$ predicted by AdS/CFT, which agrees with point-splitting or zeta function regularisation ..

The trace anomaly is entirely geometrical in origin and therefore independent of the quantum state. In a maximally symmetric spacetime, the symmetry of the vacuum implies that the expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor is proportional to the metric,

$$0|T_{\mu \nu }|0=\frac{1}{4}g_{\mu \nu }g^{\rho \sigma }0|T_{\rho \sigma }|0.$$
(2.7)
Thus the trace anomaly acts just like a cosmological constant for these spacetimes, and a positive trace anomaly permits a de Sitter solution to the Einstein equations.

The radius of the de Sitter solution is determined by the number of fields, $`N^2`$, in the CFT and is of order $`Nl_{pl}`$. Therefore the one-loop contributions to the energy-momentum tensor are $`1/N^2`$, which means they are of the same order as the classical terms in the Einstein equations. On the other hand, the corrections due to graviton loops are $`1/N^3`$, so for large $`N`$ quantum gravitational fluctuations are suppressed, confirming the consistency of the large $`N`$ approximation.

For $`\alpha ^{}=0`$ in 2.3, the only $`O(3,1)`$ invariant solutions are de Sitter space and flat space, which are the initial and final stages of the simplest inflationary universe. In order for a solution to exist that interpolates between these two stages, one must have $`\alpha ^{}<0`$ in 2.3, as Starobinsky discovered . Starobinsky showed that if $`\alpha ^{}<0`$, the de Sitter solution is unstable, and decays into a matter dominated Friedman-Lemaitre Robertson-Walker universe, on a timescale determined by $`\alpha ^{}`$. The purpose of Starobinsky’s work was to demonstrate that quantum effects of matter fields might resolve the Big Bang singularity. From a modern perspective, it is more interesting that the conformal anomaly might have been the source of a finite, but significant period of inflation in the early universe. Rapid oscillations in the expansion rate at the end of inflation, would result in particle production and (p)reheating.

Starobinsky showed that the de Sitter solution is unstable both to the future and to the past, so it was not clear how the universe could have entered the de Sitter phase. This is the problem of initial conditions for trace anomaly driven inflation, which should be addressed within the framework of quantum cosmology, by combining inflation with a theory for the wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of the quantum universe. Hartle and Hawking suggested that the amplitude for the quantum state of the universe described by 3-metric $`𝐡`$ and matter fields $`\varphi (𝐱)`$ on a 3-surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, should be given by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }[\mathrm{\Sigma },𝐡,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }]=N\underset{M}{}𝒟[𝐠]𝒟[\varphi (𝐱)]e^{S_E(𝐠,\varphi )},$$
(2.8)
where the Euclidean path integral is taken over all compact four geometries bounded only by a 3-surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, with induced metric $`𝐡`$ and matter fields $`\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. $`M`$ denotes a diffeomorphism class of 4-manifolds and $`N`$ is a normalisation factor. The motivation to restrict the class of manifolds and metrics to geometries with only a single boundary is that in cosmology, in contrast with scattering calculations, one is interested in measurements in a finite region in the interior of spacetime. The ‘no boundary’ proposal gives a definite ansatz for the wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }[\mathrm{\Sigma },𝐡,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }]`$ of the universe and in principle removes the initial singularity in the hot Big Bang model. At least within the semiclassical regime, this yields a well-defined probability measure on the space of initial conditions for cosmology.

One can appeal to quantum cosmology to explain how the de Sitter phase emerges in trace anomaly inflation, since the no boundary proposal can describe the creation of an inflationary universe from nothing. At the semiclassical level, this process is mediated by a compact instanton saddle-point of the Euclidean path integral, which extrapolates to a real Lorentzian universe at late times. To find the relative probability of different geometries in the no boundary path integral, one must compute their Euclidean action. In the next section, we consider a model of anomaly-induced inflation consisting of gravity coupled to $`𝒩=4`$, $`U(N)`$ super Yang-Mills theory, for which the AdS/CFT correspondence  provides an attractive way to calculate the effective matter action on backgrounds without symmetry. The fact that we are using $`𝒩=4`$, $`U(N)`$ super Yang-Mills theory is probably not significant since, as we shall describe, it is the large number of fields that matters in our discussion and not the Yang-Mills coupling. Therefore, we expect our results to be valid for any matter theory that is approximately massless during the de Sitter phase.

### B Effective Matter Action

We consider, in Euclidean signature, Einstein gravity coupled to a $`𝒩=4`$, $`U(N)`$ super Yang-Mills theory with large $`N`$,

$$S=\frac{1}{2\kappa }d^4x\sqrt{g}R\frac{1}{\kappa }d^3x\sqrt{h}K+W,$$
(2.9)
where $`W`$ denotes the Yang-Mills effective action. The field content of the Yang-Mills theory is $`N_S=6N^2,N_F=2N^2`$ and $`N_V=N^2`$, yielding an anomalous trace

$$g^{\mu \nu }T_{\mu \nu }=\frac{N^2}{64\pi ^2}(FG).$$
(2.10)
The one-loop result for the conformal anomaly is exact, since it is protected by supersymmetry. Therefore, inflation supported by the trace anomaly of $`𝒩=4`$, $`U(N)`$ super Yang-Mills would never end. The presence of non-conformally invariant fields in realistic matter theories, however, necessarilly alters the value of $`\alpha ^{}`$ in the anomaly 2.3. Since the coefficient of the $`^2R`$ term plays such an important role in trace anomaly driven inflation, we ought to include this correction. As a first approximation, one can account for the non-conformally invariant fields by adding a local counterterm to the action,

$$S_{ct}=\frac{\alpha N^2}{192\pi ^2}d^4x\sqrt{g}R^2.$$
(2.11)
This leads to an extra contribution to the conformal anomaly, which becomes

$$g^{\mu \nu }T_{\mu \nu }=\frac{N^2}{64\pi ^2}(FG)+\frac{\alpha N^2}{16\pi ^2}^2R.$$
(2.12)
For $`\alpha <0`$, the expansion now changes from exponential to the typical power law $`t^{2/3}`$ of a matter dominated universe, on a time scale $`12|\alpha |\mathrm{log}N`$. One can construct more sophisticated models of anomaly driven inflation, by taking in account corrections from particle masses and interactions in a more precise way. One could, for instance, consider soft supersymmetry breaking during inflation. The coefficient $`\alpha ^{}`$ could then vary in time, because the decoupling of massive sparticles at low energy  alters the number of degrees of freedom that contribute to the quantum effective action. For our purposes, however, it is sufficient to consider the theory above.

In no boundary cosmology, one is interested in solutions that describe a Lorentzian inflationary universe that emerges from a compact instanton solution of the Euclidean field equations. These geometries provide saddle-points of the Euclidean path integral 2.8 for the wave function of interest. Because our universe is Lorentzian at late times, it has been suggested that the relevant instanton saddle-points of the no boundary path integral are so-called ‘real tunneling’ geometries . Cosmological real tunneling solutions are compact Riemannian geometries joined to an $`O(3,1)`$ invariant Lorentzian solution of Einstein’s equations, across a hypersurface of vanishing extrinsic curvature $`K_{\mu \nu }`$. Such instanton solutions can then be used as background in a perturbative evaluation of the no boundary path integral, to find correlators of metric perturbations during inflation, which in turn determine the cosmic microwave anisotropies.

We now compute the effective matter action $`W`$ on such perturbed instanton metrics. After eliminating the gauge freedom, the perturbed metric on the spaces of interest can be written as

$$ds^2=B^2(\chi )\gamma _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu =B^2(\chi )((1+\psi )\widehat{\gamma }_{\mu \nu }+\theta _{\mu \nu })dx^\mu dx^\nu ,$$
(2.13)
where $`\widehat{\gamma }_{\mu \nu }`$ is the metric on the unit $`S^4`$ and $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ is transverse and traceless with respect to the four sphere.

In order to evaluate the no boundary path integral, we must first compute the quantum effective action $`W[B,𝐡]`$ on the background 2.13. The effective action of the matter fields is computed as an expansion around the homogeneous background with metric $`g_{\mu \nu }=B^2(\chi )\widehat{\gamma }_{\mu \nu }`$. To second order in the metric perturbation, $`W[B,𝐡]`$ is determined by the one and two-point function of the energy-momentum tensor on the unperturbed $`O(4)`$ invariant background. The one-point function is given by the conformal anomaly. Since the FLRW background is conformal to the round four sphere, the two-point function can be calculated by a conformal transformation from $`S^4`$. On $`S^4`$, the two-point function is determined entirely by symmetry and the trace anomaly . Therefore, since the energy-momentum tensor transforms anomalously, the two-point function on 2.13 should be fully determined by the two-point function on $`S^4`$, the trace anomaly and the scale factor $`B(\chi )`$. For the matter theory we have in mind, all these quantities are independent of the coupling, so it follows that the effective action $`W[B,𝐡]`$ is independent of the coupling, to second order in the metric perturbation.

In , it was found how the effective action that generates a conformal anomaly of the form 2.3, transforms under a conformal transformation. We can use this result to relate $`W[B,𝐡]`$ on the perturbed FLRW space to $`W[r,𝐡]`$ on the perturbed four sphere with radius $`r`$. Writing $`B(\chi )=re^{\sigma (\chi )}`$, where $`r`$ is an arbitrary radius, the transformation is given by

$`W[\sigma (\chi ),h]`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{W}[r,h]{\displaystyle \frac{N^2}{32\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle }d^4x\sqrt{\gamma }[\sigma (R^{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}R^2)+2_\mu \sigma ^\mu \sigma ^2\sigma `$ (2.15)
$`+2(R^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma ^{\mu \nu }R)_\mu \sigma _\nu \sigma +(_\mu \sigma ^\mu \sigma )^2]`$
Here $`\stackrel{~}{W}`$ denotes the effective action on the perturbed four sphere of radius $`r`$ with metric $`\gamma _{\mu \nu }`$, and the Ricci scalar $`R`$ and covariant derivative $`_\mu `$ refer to the same space.

The generating functional $`\stackrel{~}{W}[r,h]`$ was computed in , by using the AdS/CFT correspondence ,

$$Z[𝐡]d[𝐠]\mathrm{exp}(S_{grav}[𝐠])=d[\varphi ]\mathrm{exp}(S_{CFT}[\varphi ;𝐡])\mathrm{exp}(W_{CFT}[𝐡]),$$
(2.16)
where $`Z[𝐡]`$ is the supergravity partition function on $`AdS_5`$. The AdS/CFT calculation is performed by introducing a fictional ball of (Euclidean) AdS that has the perturbed sphere as its boundary. In the classical gravity limit, the CFT generating functional can then be obtained by solving the IIB supergravity field equations, to find the bulk metric $`𝐠`$ that matches onto the boundary metric $`𝐡`$, and adding a number of counterterms that depend on the geometry of the boundary, in order to render the action finite as the boundary is moved off to infinity. To second order in the perturbation $`𝐡`$, the quantum effective action (including the $`R^2`$ counterterm) is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{W}=\stackrel{~}{W}^{(0)}+\stackrel{~}{W}^{(1)}+\stackrel{~}{W}^{(2)}+\mathrm{}$$
(2.17)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{W}^{(0)}=\frac{3\beta N^2\mathrm{\Omega }_4}{8\pi ^2}+\frac{3\alpha N^2\mathrm{\Omega }_4}{4\pi ^2}+\frac{3N^2\mathrm{\Omega }_4}{32\pi ^2}\left(4\mathrm{log}21\right),$$
(2.18)
$$\stackrel{~}{W}^{(1)}=\frac{3N^2}{16\pi ^2r^2}d^4x\sqrt{\widehat{\gamma }}\psi ,$$
(2.19)
$`\stackrel{~}{W}^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3N^2}{64\pi ^2r^4}}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{\widehat{\gamma }}\left[\psi \left(\widehat{}^2+2\right)\psi \alpha \psi \left(\widehat{}^4+4\widehat{}^2\right)\psi \right]}`$ (2.20)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N^2}{256\pi ^2r^4}}{\displaystyle \underset{p}{}}\left({\displaystyle d^4x^{}\sqrt{\widehat{\gamma }}\theta ^{\mu \nu }(x^{})H_{\mu \nu }^{(p)}(x^{})}\right)^2\left(\mathrm{\Psi }(p)4\alpha p(p+3)\right),`$ (2.21)
where $`p`$ labels the eigenvalues of the Laplacian $`\widehat{}^2`$ on the round four sphere and

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(p)`$ $`=`$ $`p(p+1)(p+2)(p+3)\left[\psi (p/2+5/2)+\psi (p/2+2)\psi (2)\psi (1)\right]`$ (2.23)
$`+p^4+2p^35p^210p6+2\beta p(p+1)(p+2)(p+3),`$
and we have allowed for a finite contribution, with coefficient $`\beta `$, of the third counterterm, which is necessary to cancel a logarithmic divergence of the tensor perturbation. Inserting the expression for $`\stackrel{~}{W}`$ in 2.15 and evaluating the terms depending on the scale factor $`\sigma (\chi )`$, one obtains the quantum effective action of the Yang-Mills teory on a general, perturbed FLRW geometry. For completeness, we also give the Einstein-Hilbert action of the perturbed four sphere,

$`S_{EH}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{\Omega }_4r^2}{4\pi G}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4\pi G}}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{\widehat{\gamma }}\psi }`$ (2.25)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi Gr^2}}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{\widehat{\gamma }}\left(\frac{3}{2}\psi \widehat{}^2\psi +2\theta ^{\mu \nu }\theta _{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}\theta ^{\mu \nu }\widehat{}^2\theta _{\mu \nu }\right)}.`$
We shall use these results in section III, where we discuss the instability of anomaly-induced inflation. But first, we return to the background evolution. In the next paragraph, we discuss a class of $`O(4)`$ invariant ‘real tunneling’ instanton solutions of the Starobinsky model 2.9 and study their role in the no boundary path integral for the wave function of an inflationary universe.

### C Real Tunneling Geometries

It is easily seen that the total action is stationary under all perturbations $`h_{\mu \nu }`$, if the background is a round four sphere with radius

$$r_s^2=\frac{N^2G}{4\pi }.$$
(2.26)
By slicing the four sphere at the equator $`\chi =\pi /2`$ and writing $`\chi =\frac{\pi }{2}it`$, it analytically continues into the Lorentzian to the de Sitter solution mentioned above, with the cosmological constant provided by the trace anomaly of the large $`N`$ Yang-Mills theory.

Other compact, real instanton solutions of the form

$$ds^2=d\tau ^2+b^2(\tau )d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2$$
(2.27)
were found in , by numerically integrating the Einstein equations, which can be obtained directly from the trace anomaly by using energy-momentum conservation. Imposing regularity at the North Pole (at $`\tau =0`$) of the instanton leaves only the third derivative of the scale factor at the North Pole as an adjustable parameter. It is convenient to define dimensionless variables $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }=\tau /r_s`$ and $`f(\stackrel{~}{\tau })=b(\tau )/r_s`$. For $`\alpha <0`$, there exists a second regular, compact ‘double bubble’ instanton, with $`f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)=2.05`$, together with a one-parameter family of instantons with an irregular South Pole. For $`f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)<1`$, the scale factor of the latter has two peaks. For $`1<f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)<0`$ on the other hand, they are similar to the singular Hawking-Turok instantons that have been considered in the context of scalar field inflation .

The Lorentzian part of the real tunneling saddle-points is obtained by analytically continuing the instanton metric across a hypersurface of vanishing extrinsic curvature. The double bubble instanton can be continued across its ‘equator’ to give a closed FLRW universe, or into an open universe by a double continuation across the South Pole. Our numerical studies show that the closed universe rapidly collapses and that the open spacetime hyper-inflates, with the scale factor blowing up at a finite time. Similarly, the singular instantons can be continued into an open FLRW universe across $`\tau =0`$, by setting $`\tau =it`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_3=i\varphi `$. For $`f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)<1`$ this again gives hyper-inflation, but for $`1<f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)<0`$ one obtains a realistic inflationary universe. The four sphere solution as well as the singular instantons that are small perturbations of $`S^4`$ at the regular pole, are most interesting for cosmology, since they yield long periods of inflation.

Using the expressions 2.15 and 2.18 for $`W[\sigma (\chi )]`$ and the relations

$$\chi (\tau )=2\underset{ϵ0}{lim}\mathrm{tan}^1\left[\mathrm{tan}(ϵ/2)\mathrm{exp}\left(_ϵ^\tau \frac{d\tau ^{}}{b(\tau ^{})}\right)\right],B(\tau )=\frac{b(\tau )}{\mathrm{sin}(\chi )},$$
(2.28)
one can numerically compute the action of the real tunneling geometries . On an unperturbed FLRW background, conformal to the round four sphere, the total Euclidean action becomes

$`S^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3N^2\mathrm{\Omega }_3}{32\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle }d\chi \mathrm{sin}^3\chi [{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}(12(\mathrm{log}2+\sigma \beta )3+6\sigma ^2\sigma ^44\sigma ^3\mathrm{cot}\chi )`$ (2.30)
$`e^{2\sigma }(\sigma ^2+2)+2\alpha (\sigma ^{\prime \prime }+3\sigma ^{}\mathrm{cot}\chi +\sigma ^22)^2]`$
where $`\sigma =\mathrm{log}(B/r)`$. On the round four sphere, $`\sigma 0`$, so the action reduces to

$$S^{(0)}=\frac{3N^2\mathrm{\Omega }_4}{32\pi ^2}(8\alpha 3+4(\mathrm{log}2\beta ))$$
(2.31)
We find that for all $`\alpha <0`$ the regular double bubble instanton has much lower action than the four sphere. The singular double bubble instantons have divergent action, but the Hawking-Turok type instantons have finite actionFor completeness, we should mention that if $`\alpha >0`$ one must have $`f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)1`$ in order for the solution to be compact. For $`f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)<1`$, the instantons have a singular South Pole but finite action, and continue to hyper-inflating open universes.. For given $`\alpha `$, the action of the latter class depends on the third derivative of the scale factor at $`\tau =0`$. This is the analogue of the situation in scalar field inflation, where the action of the Hawking-Turok instantons depends on the value of the inflaton field at the North Pole. The action of the singular instantons tends smoothly to the $`S^4`$ action 2.31 as $`f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)1`$ and it decreases monotonically with increasing $`f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)`$.

To summarize, we found a one-parameter family of finite-action, compact solutions of the Euclidean field equations that can be analytically continued across a spacelike surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of vanishing curvature, to Lorentzian geometries that describe realistic inflationary universes. The condition on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ guarantees that a real solution of the Euclidean field equations is continued to a real Lorentzian spacetime. The Euclidean region is essential, since there is no way to round off a Lorentzian geometry without introducing a boundary. What is the relevance then, in the context of the no boundary proposal, of these real tunneling geometries with regard to the problem of initial conditions in cosmology?

At least at the semiclassical level, the no boundary proposal gives a measure on the space of initial conditions for cosmology. The weight of each classical trajectory is approximately $`|\mathrm{\Psi }|^2e^{2S_R}`$, where $`S_R`$ is the real part of the Euclidean action of the solution. For real tunneling solutions this comes entirely from the part of the manifold on which the geometry is Riemannian. The simplicity of this situation has led to the interpretation of the no boundary proposal as a bottom up theory of initial conditions. In particular, it has been argued that if a given theory allows different instantons, the no boundary proposal predicts our universe to be created through the lowest-action solution, since this would give the dominant contribution to the path integral. Applying this interpretation to trace anomaly driven inflation, one must conclude that the no boundary proposal predicts the creation of a hyper-inflating universe emerging from the double bubble instanton, or a nearly empty open universe that occurs by semiclassical tunneling via a singular instanton with $`|f^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)|`$ small.

The situation is similar in many theories of scalar field inflation. Restricting attention to real tunneling geometries, a bottom up interpretation of the no boundary proposal generally favours the creation of large spacetimes. One typically obtains a probability distribution that is peaked around instantons in which the field at the surface of continuation is near the minimum of its potential, yielding very little inflation. Hence, the most probable universes are nearly empty open universes or collapsing closed universes, depending on the analytic continuation one considers. Weak anthropic arguments have been invoked to try to rescue the situation , by weighing the a priori no boundary probability with the probability of the formation of galaxies. However, for the most natural inflaton potentials, this still predicts a value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ that is far too low to be compatible with observations. Another attempt , based on introducing a volume factor that represents the projection onto the subset of states containing a particular observer, leads to eternal inflation at the Planck density, where the theory breaks down. In fact, invoking conditional probabilities is contrary to the whole idea of the no boundary proposal, which by itself specifies the quantum state of the universe.

Clearly the predictions of a bottom up interpretation of the no boundary proposal do not agree with observation. This is because it is an essentially classical interpretation, which is neither relevant nor correct for cosmology. The quantum origin of the universe implies its quantum state is given by a path integral. Therefore, one must adopt a quantum approach to the problem of initial conditions, in which one considers the no boundary path integral 2.8 for a given quantum state of the universe. We shall apply such a quantum approach in section IV, to describe the origin of an inflationary universe, in theories like trace anomaly inflation. It turns out that the relevant saddle-points are not exactly real tunneling geometries. Instead, one must consider complex saddle points, in which the geometry becomes gradually Lorentzian at late times.

## III Instability of Anomaly-Induced Inflation

### A Metric Perturbations

Two-point functions of metric perturbations can be computed directly from the no boundary path integral. One perturbatively evaluates the path integral around an $`O(4)`$ invariant instanton background to obtain the real-space Euclidean correlator, which is then analytically continued into the Lorentzian universe, where it describes the quantum fluctuations of the graviton field in the primordial de Sitter phase . The quantum state of the Lorentzian fluctuations is uniquely determined by the condition of regularity on the instanton . Both scalar and tensor perturbations are given by a path integral of the form

$$h_{\mu \nu }(x)h_{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(x^{})d[𝐡]\mathrm{exp}(S^{(2)})h_{\mu \nu }(x)h_{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(x^{}),$$
(3.32)
where $`S^{(2)}`$ denotes the second order perturbation of the action

$$S=S_{EH}+S_{GH}+S_{R^2}+\stackrel{~}{W},$$
(3.33)
with $`\stackrel{~}{W}`$ given by 2.17. For the scalars, eliminating the remaining gauge freedom introduces Faddeev-Popov ghosts. These ghosts supply a determinant $`(\widehat{}^2+4)^1`$, which cancels a similar factor in the scalar action, rendering it second order§§§The gauge freedom also leads to closed loops of Faddeev-Popov ghosts but they can be neglected in the large $`N`$ approximation.. The action for the tensors $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ on the other hand is non-local and fourth order. Nevertheless, the metric perturbation and its first derivative should not be regarded as two independent variables, since this would lead to meaningless probability distributions in the Lorentzian . Instead the path integral should be taken over the fields $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ onlyThis means one loses unitarity. However, probabilities for observations tend towards those of the second order theory, as the coefficients of the fourth order terms in the action tend to zero. Hence unitarity is restored at the low energies that now occur in the universe., to compute correlators of the form 3.32. The Euclidean action for $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ is positive definite, so the path integral over all $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ converges and determines a well-defined Euclidean quantum field theory. One might worry that the higher derivatives would lead to instabilities in the Lorentzian. This is not the case, however, since the no boundary prescription to compute Lorentzian propagators by Wick rotation from the Euclidean, implicitly imposes the final boundary condition that the fields remain bounded, which eliminates the runaways .

The path integral 3.32 is Gaussian, so the correlation functions can be read off from the perturbed action, equation 2.20 and 2.25:

$$\psi (x)\psi (x^{})=\frac{32\pi ^2r_s^4}{3|\alpha |N^2}\left(\widehat{}^2+1/2\alpha \right)^1,$$
(3.34)
and

$$\theta _{\mu \nu }(x)\theta _{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(x^{})=\frac{128\pi ^2r_s^4}{N^2}\underset{p=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{W_{\mu \nu \mu ^{}\nu ^{}}^{(p)}(x,x^{})}{p^2+3p+6+\mathrm{\Psi }(p)4\alpha p(p+3)},$$
(3.35)
where the bitensor $`W_{\mu \nu \mu ^{}\nu ^{}}^{(p)}(x,x^{})`$ is defined as the usual sum over degenerate rank-2 harmonics on the four sphere and $`\mathrm{\Psi }(p)`$ is given by 2.23.

The scalar two-point function 3.34 is just the propagator of a particle with physical mass $`m^2=(2\alpha r_s^2)^1`$. Since we are assuming $`\alpha <0`$, we have $`m^2<0`$ so this particle is a tachyon, which is the perturbative manifestation of the Starobinsky instability. Making $`\alpha `$ more negative, makes the tachyon mass squared less negative, and therefore weakens the instability. Indeed, the number of efoldings in the primordial de Sitter phase emerging from the four sphere instanton is given by $`N_{efolds}12|\alpha |(\mathrm{log}N1)`$. Therefore, in the interesting regime, we have $`m^2<<m_{pl}^2`$, so semiclassical gravity should be a good approximation.

This result sheds light on the problem of initial conditions in trace anomaly inflation. One can think of the non derivative term in the scalar correlator as a potential $`V(\psi )`$, with the unperturbed de Sitter solution at $`\psi =0`$ at the maximum. If $`|\alpha |`$ is not too small, then the top of the potential is sufficiently flat, so that the lowest-action regular instanton is a homogeneous Hawking-Moss instanton , with $`\psi `$ constant at the top. Since the instability of the de Sitter phase is characterised entirely by the coefficient $`\alpha `$ of the $`R^2`$ counterterm. this means the problem of initial conditions in anomaly-induced inflation is similar to the corresponding problem in many theories of scalar field inflation, where one ought to explain why the inflaton starts initially at the top of the hill. We study the origin of these inflationary universes in section IV. Before doing so, however, we comment on the homogeneous mode in the scalar spectrum, which has given rise to some controversy in the literature.

### B Homogeneous Fluctuations

The most interesting instantons in both trace anomaly driven inflation as well as most theories of scalar field inflation possess a homogeneous fluctuation mode which decreases their action . The presence of such a negative mode is the perturbative manifestation of the conformal factor problem. Indeed, since the conformal factor problem is closely related to the instability of gravity under gravitational collapse, one expects instantons that are appealing from a cosmological perspective, to possess a negative mode.

Writing the scalar propagator 3.34 on the four sphere instanton in momentum space gives

$$\psi (x)\psi (x^{})=\frac{32\pi ^2r_s^4}{3|\alpha |N^2}\underset{p=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{W^{(p)}(\mu (x,x^{}))}{p(p+3)+m^2},$$
(3.36)
where the biscalar $`W^{(p)}`$ equals the usual sum over degenerate scalar harmonics on the four sphere with eigenvalue $`\lambda _p=p(p+3)`$ of the Laplacian.

There are many negative modes if $`1/8<\alpha <0`$. This is usually the perturbative indication of the existence of a lower-action instanton solution. For instance, in scalar field inflation with a double well potential, the Hawking-Moss instanton possesses several negative modes if $`V_{,\varphi \varphi }/H^2<4`$, which is precisely the condition for the existence of a lower-action Coleman-De Luccia instanton that straddles the maximum. On the other hand, if $`\alpha <1/8`$ in 3.36 then only the homogeneous ($`p=0`$) negative mode remains, which is again similar to the well-known negative homogeneous mode of the Hawking-Moss instanton in theories with a scalar potential that is sufficiently flat.

The presence of a physical negative mode supports the interpretation of an instanton as describing the decay of an unstable state through semiclassical tunneling . On the other hand, it has been argued that it questions its use in the no boundary path integral to define the initial quantum state of the universeIn scalar field inflation, one can view the singular Hawking-Turok instantons as constrained instantons, with additional data specified on an internal boundary. For some theories, the constraint introduced in  to resolve the singularity, also removes the negative mode, at least perturbatively . However, it does not remove the instability non-perturbatively and for the most obvious potentials, the lowest-action constrained instanton gives very little inflation. . Within the semiclassical approximation, however, it is more appropriate to project out the negative mode, since the semiclassical approach is based on the assumption that the path integral can be expanded around solutions of the classical field equations.

The conclusions of  are based on a perturbation calculation around compact, real instanton backgrounds, that does not take in account the wave function of interest. One expects, however, the configuration specifying the quantum state of the Lorentzian universe to project out the negative mode from the perturbation spectrum. Consider for example the wave function of a universe described by a 3-sphere with radius $`R^2=V_0/3`$ and field $`\varphi =0`$, in a theory of gravity coupled to a single scalar field with potential $`V_0(1\varphi ^2)^2`$. In the semiclassical approximation, this is given by half of a Hawking-Moss instanton with the field constant at the top of the potential. Obviously, this solution has no negative mode, since the boundary condition on the 3-sphere $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ removes the lowest eigenvalue solution of the Schrödinger equation for the perturbations. Since the negative mode corresponds to a homogeneous fluctuation, this is probably true also for large 3-spheres in the Lorentzian regime. Therefore, one expects that in the top down approach to cosmology, where the quantum state of the universe is taken in account, the negative mode is automatically projected out.

### C Quantum Matter and the Microwave Background

Before discussing the top down approach in more detail, we pause to briefly comment on some of the characteristic predictions for observations of trace anomaly inflation.

To extract accurate predictions for the cosmic microwave anisotropies, one must evolve the perturbations through the Starobinsky instability, to obtain initial conditions for the inhomogeneities during the radiation and matter eras. Details of this calculation will be presented elsewhere , but some interesting features of the microwave temperature anisotropies predicted by anomaly-induced inflation, can be extracted from the correlators 3.34 and 3.35 in the primordial de Sitter era. Obviously, as can be seen from 3.35, the quantum matter couples to the tensors. Starobinsky  and Vilenkin  assumed that the amplitude of primordial gravity waves was not significantly altered by the quantum matter loops. This assumption can now be examined using AdS/CFT, which has allowed us to include the effect of the Weyl2 counterterm and the non-local part of the matter effective action. We find that at small scales, matter fields dominate the tensor propagator and make it decay like $`p^4\mathrm{log}p`$. In other words, the CFT appears to give spacetime a rigidity on small scales, an example of how quantum loops of matter can change gravity at short distances. In fact, this suppression should occur even if inflation is not driven by the trace anomaly, since we observe a large number of matter fields, whose effective action is expected to dominate the propagator on small scales.

Secondly, both the higher derivative counterterms and the matter fields introduce anisotropic stress, which is an important difference with scalar field inflation. This can be seen from decomposing the tensors $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ into a scalar $`\varphi `$ and tensor $`t_{ij}`$ under $`O(4)`$. The former is the difference between the two potentials in the Newtonian gauge and corresponds to anisotropic stress. Typically reheating at the end of anomaly-induced inflation leads to creation of particles that are not in thermal equilibrium with the photon-baryon fluid, so one expects some anisotropic stress to survive during the radiation era. To make more precise predictions, however, a better understanding is required of the (probably time-dependent) values of the coefficients $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ of the higher derivative counterterms in the theory.

Finally, we should mention that for the tensor propagator the higher derivative terms also give rise to poles in the complex $`p`$-plane. These are harmless, however, since the contour obtained from the Euclidean goes around the complex poles . In other words, defining our theory in the Euclidean, implicitly removes the instabilities associated with the complex poles, like a final boundary condition removes the runaway solution of the classical radiation reaction force .

## IV Origin of Inflation

We have seen that the predictions of the bottom up approach to the problem of initial conditions in inflation do not agree with observation. This is because it is based on an essentially classical picture, in which one assumes some initial condition for the universe and evolves it forward in time. The quantum origin of our universe, however, means that its wave function is determined by a path integral, in which one sums over all possible histories that lead to a given quantum state, together with some suitable boundary conditions on the paths. This naturally leads to a top down view of the universe. In a top down context, rather than comparing the relative probabilities of different semiclassical geometries, one looks for the most probable evolution that leads to a certain outcome.

We now apply the quantum top down interpretation of the no boundary proposal to study the origin of an inflationary universe, in theories where the instability of the inflationary phase can be described in terms of a single scalar field with an effective potential that has a local maximum. As shown in section III, this includes trace anomaly driven inflation, since the emergence of an anomaly driven inflationary universe is very similar to the creation of an exponentially expanding universe in theories of new inflation.

We consider a model consisting of gravity coupled to a single scalar field, with a double well potential $`V(\varphi )=A(1\frac{C}{2}\varphi ^2)^2`$ (with $`A,C>0`$). For $`C<2/3`$, the potential has a maximum at $`\varphi =0`$ with $`V_{,\varphi \varphi }/V`$ sufficiently low so that there exists no Coleman-De Luccia instanton, but only a Hawking-Moss instanton with $`\varphi =0`$ everywhere on top of the hill. Implementing a top down approach, we consider the quantum amplitudes $`\mathrm{\Phi }[\mathrm{\Sigma },\stackrel{~}{𝐡},K,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }]`$ for different conformal 3-geometries $`\stackrel{~}{𝐡}`$ with trace $`K`$ of the second fundamental form, on an expanding surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ during inflation\**\**\**In principle we should consider the amplitude for a conformal 3-geometry on a surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ just inside our past light cone, with $`K`$ equal to the present Hubble rate and given values for all other observables. However, it is sufficient to consider the quantum amplitude for a configuration on an expanding surface in the inflationary period, since this can then be accurately evolved to the future using classical laws.. According to the no boundary proposal, the defining path integral should be taken over all compact Riemannian geometries that induce the prescribed configuration on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

In the $`K`$-representation, the Euclidean action is given by

$$S=\frac{1}{2\kappa }d^4x\sqrt{g}R\frac{1}{3\kappa }d^3x\sqrt{h}K+d^4x\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi +V(\varphi )\right),$$
(4.37)
The usual wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }[𝐡,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}]`$ is obtained from $`\mathrm{\Phi }[\stackrel{~}{𝐡},K,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }]`$ by an inverse Laplace transform,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }[𝐡,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}]=_\mathrm{\Gamma }d\left[\frac{K}{4i\kappa }\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{2}{3\kappa }d^3x\sqrt{h}K\right]\mathrm{\Phi }[\stackrel{~}{𝐡},K,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }]$$
(4.38)
where the contour $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ runs from $`i\mathrm{}`$ to $`+i\mathrm{}`$.

Within the semiclassical approximation, the no boundary wave function is approximately given by the saddle-point contributions. Restricting attention to saddle-points that are invariant under the action of an $`O(4)`$ isometry group, the instanton metric can be written as

$$ds^2=d\tau ^2+b^2(\tau )d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2,$$
(4.39)
and the Euclidean field equations read

$$\varphi ^{\prime \prime }=K\varphi ^{}+V_{,\varphi }$$
(4.40)
$$K^{}+K^2=(\varphi _{,\tau }^2+V)$$
(4.41)
where $`\varphi ^{}=\varphi _{,\tau }`$ and $`K=3b_{,\tau }/b`$. The Lorentzian trace $`K_L^{}=3\dot{a}/a`$ is obtained by analytic continuation. We first calculate the wave function for real $`K`$, and then analytically continue to imaginary, or Lorentzian $`K_L^{}=iK`$.

At the semiclassical level, there are two contributions to the given amplitude. For small $`\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and any Euclidean $`K`$, there always exists a non-singular, Euclidean $`O(4)`$ invariant solution of the field equations, with the prescribed boundary conditions. This solution is part of a deformed sphere, or Hawking-Turok instanton. In the approximation $`K=3H\mathrm{cot}(H\tau )`$, with $`H^2=A/3`$, and $`V(\varphi )A(1C\varphi ^2)`$, the solution of 4.40 is given by

$$\varphi =\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\frac{{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(3/2+q,3/2q,2,z(K))}{{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(3/2+q,3/2q,2,z(K_\mathrm{\Sigma }))}$$
(4.42)
where

$$q=\sqrt{9/4+6C},z(K)=\frac{1}{2}\left[1\frac{K}{(A^2+K^2)^{1/2}}\right]$$
(4.43)
At the South Pole $`K+\mathrm{}`$, so in the instanton the scalar field slowly rolls up the hill from its value at the regular South Pole to the prescribed value $`\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ on the 3-sphere with trace $`K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$. The weight of the Hawking-Turok geometry in the no boundary path integral for the wave function $`\mathrm{\Phi }[K,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}]`$ is approximately given by

$`S[K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{},\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\kappa }}{\displaystyle d^3x\sqrt{h}K}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}V(\varphi )}`$ (4.44)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{12\pi ^2}{A}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{K}{(A^2+K^2)^{1/2}}}]{\displaystyle \frac{24\pi ^2C}{A^2(1C)}}\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^2z^2(K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{})\times `$ (4.46)
$`[12z(K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{})+3C(1z(K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}))(z(K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{})+{\displaystyle \frac{23C}{1+3C}}){\displaystyle \frac{F^{}}{F}}[(z(K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{})]]`$
For small $`\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$, there is a second semiclassical contribution to the wave function, coming from universes that are created via an $`O(5)`$ symmetric Hawking-Moss instanton with $`\varphi `$ constant at the top of the hill, but in which a quantum fluctuation disturbs the field, causing it to run down to its prescribed value $`\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ at the 3-sphere boundary with trace $`K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$. Neglecting prefactors, the action of the Hawking-Moss geometry is given by the first term in 4.44. It follows that for $`K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}=0`$, the action of the Hawking-Turok geometry is more negative than the action of the Hawking-Moss instanton. This would seem to suggest that the universe is least likely to start at the top of the hill. However, we are not interested in the amplitude for a Euclidean spacetime, but in the no boundary wave function of a Lorentzian expanding universe.

Within the regime in which $`\varphi `$ remains small over the whole geometry, one can derive the amplitude in the Lorentzian from our result for $`S[K_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{},\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}]`$, by analytic continuation into the complex $`K`$-plane. In a Lorentzian universe, Euclidean $`K`$ is pure imaginary, $`K_L^{}=iK`$. Since the action is invariant under diffeomorphically related contours in the complex $`\tau `$-plane, we may deform the contour into one with straight sections, along the real and imaginary $`K`$-axis. It follows immediately from 4.44 that the real part of the action for the Hawking-Moss instanton is constant on the imaginary $`K`$-axis, unlike the action for the Hawking-Turok geometry. According to the no boundary proposal, the relative probability of both geometries is given by

$$P[K_L,\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }]=\frac{A_{HM}^2}{A_{HT}^2}e^{2\mathrm{}[\mathrm{\Delta }S]}$$
(4.47)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=S_{HM}^{}S_{HT}^{}`$. The prefactors account for small fluctuations around the classical solutions and can be neglected for small $`\varphi `$.

In figure 1 we plot $`\mathrm{}[\delta S(k_l)]`$, which is proportional to the real part of the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ between the action of both geometries, as a function of Lorentzian $`k_l=\frac{K_L}{\sqrt{A^2K_L^2}}`$, with $`A=1`$ and $`C=1/3`$. This shows that the real part of the action for the Hawking-Turok geometry increases on the imaginary axis away from $`K=0`$ and soon becomes larger than the $`O(5)`$ action. In addition, within our approximation $`\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ enters only in the prefactor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$. Therefore, the dominant contribution to the no boundary path integral for a Lorentzian inflating universe comes from spacetimes which are created by semiclassical tunneling via a Hawking–Moss instanton and which inflate for a long time before a quantum fluctuation causes the field to roll down to its final value $`\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. This means that in an inflationary universe, the scalar field is more likely to start at the top of the hill and roll down, than to start lower down. The reason is that although being at the top of the hill costs potential energy, it saves gradient energy, by having a scalar field that is constant in space and time. If the maximum of the potential is fairly flat, the gradient energy is dominant, and the universe starts with a constant scalar, at the top of the hill. Therefore, one does not need an initial hot Big Bang phase, to explain why inflation began at a local maximum of the potential.

As mentioned above, this scenario is realised in trace anomaly driven inflation. The unperturbed de Sitter solution 2.26 in anomaly-induced inflation emerges from the Hawking-Moss geometry, while the inhomogeneous Hawking-Turok evolution corresponds to one of the singular instantons discussed in section II. The field configuration on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ determines the third derivative of the scale factor at the regular South Pole, or equivalently the initial value of the order parameter $`\varphi `$ governing the instability. For $`\alpha <1/8`$, the instability of the de Sitter phase is sufficiently weak, so that the universe is most likely to start at the top, in an unstable de Sitter state. This result also justifies our calculation of metric perturbations, which were based on a perturbative expansion of the path integral about the round four sphere.

Finally, we should mention that because we are interested in real matter fields on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, the analytic continuation into the complex $`K`$-plane means $`\varphi `$ must be complex in the bulk of the instanton††††††Complex instanton solutions have previously been considered in . Physical constraints on complex contours of 4-geometries in the no boundary path integral were discussed in . In this context, we should mention that in the absence of an extension of Bishop’s theorem to complex geometries, it is not entirely clear whether the $`O(4)`$ invariant geometries considered here are in fact the lowest-action saddle-points that contribute to the wave function of interest.. More precisely, at the South Pole, we must have $`\mathrm{}[\varphi ]=\varphi _\mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{}[F(z_\mathrm{\Sigma })]/\mathrm{}[F(z_\mathrm{\Sigma })]`$. This has no physical meaning though, since the stationary phase approximation is just a mathematical construction to evaluate the path integral over real $`\varphi `$.

## V Discussion

We have studied the problem of initial conditions in cosmology. Because our universe has a quantum origin, one must adopt a top down approach, in which one considers the path integral over a class of histories that lead to a given quantum state of the universe. A top down view is naturally implemented in the context of the no boundary proposal, which states that the amplitude for the quantum state of the universe on a 3-surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is given by a path integral over all geometries that induce the prescribed configuration on their only boundary $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. We have investigated the no boundary predictions for the quantum cosmological origin of a large class of inflationary universes. In particular, we have considered theories of inflation where the global instability can be described in terms of a single scalar field $`\varphi `$ with an effective potential that has a sufficiently flat local maximum. This includes Starobinsky’s trace anomaly model, since the nature of the initial instability in anomaly-induced inflation is the same as the instability that occurs in new inflation. Trace anomaly driven inflation has a sound motivation in fundamental particle physics, since we observe a large number of matter fields in the universe, which may be expected to behave like a CFT in the early universe. The no boundary proposal predicts an inflationary universe to be created in an unstable de Sitter state, by semiclassical tunneling via a Hawking-Moss instanton. The universe first inflates, before a quantum fluctuation causes the field to roll down and inflation to end. Provided $`4<V_{,\varphi \varphi }/H^2<0`$, the maximum of the potential is sufficiently flat, so that this geometry has lower action than an inhomogeneous Hawking-Turok type evolution.

One could think of the no boundary proposal as describing the creation of universes with different radii, like the formation of bubbles of steam. If the bubbles are small, they collapse again, but there is a critical size above which they are more likely to grow. In theories where the amplitude for an expanding universe is dominated by geometries that start in a de Sitter state, this naturally leads to the interpretation of the round Hawking-Moss instanton on top of the hill as corresponding to that critical size.

Correlators of observables on a spacelike hypersurface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ should be computed directly from the no boundary path integral, by summing over histories to the past of that surface. In the semiclassical approximation, the dominant instanton saddle-point solution should be used as background in a perturbative evaluation of the no boundary path integral, to find correlators of metric perturbations during inflation. Therefore, our result justifies the perturbation calculations performed in section III and in , in which we computed Euclidean propagators assuming a four sphere instanton background. Evolving the spectrum of primordial perturbations through the Starobinsky instability determines the cosmic microwave anisotropies. Hence the boundary condition on the fluctuation modes imposed by the instanton background may provide an observational discriminant between different saddle-points, hereby connecting quantum cosmology and the top down approach to falsifiabble predictions for observation .

We have argued that because our universe has a quantum origin, one must adopt a top down approach to the problem of initial conditions in cosmology, in which the histories that contribute to the path integral, depend on the observable being measured. There is an amplitude for empty flat space, but it is not of much significance. Similarly, the other bubbles in an eternally inflating spacetime are irrelevant. They are to the future of our past light cone, so they don’t contribute to the action for observables and should be excised by Ockham’s razor. Therefore, the top down approach is a mathematical formulation of the weak anthropic principle. Instead of starting with a universe and asking what a typical observer would see, one specifies the amplitude of interest. In the context of the no boundary proposal, however, a top down description of the universe is not necessarily less ‘complete’ or less predictive. We believe that if we are to explain why the universe is the way we observe it to be, a top down view is forced upon us by the quantum nature of the universe. Therefore, although future developments in M-Theory will provide us with new insights in how a theory of boundary conditions in cosmology should be formulated, the approach developed here should still apply when the framework of quantum cosmology will be based on M-Theory.

Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to thank Gary Gibbons, Harvey Reall and Toby Wiseman for helpful discussions.