Further Improvements in the Understanding of Isotropic Loop Quantum Cosmology

TL;DR

This paper introduces an improved operator in isotropic Loop Quantum Cosmology that effectively resolves the cosmological singularity, clarifies the relation between different quantum constraints, and demonstrates a generic quantum bounce replacing the classical singularity.

Contribution

The authors propose an alternative Hamiltonian constraint operator that decouples the singularity at the kinematical level and superselects simple, physically meaningful sectors with optimal properties.

Findings

Singularity decouples at the kinematical level with the new operator.

The quantum bounce occurs generically, not only in semiclassical states.

The approach provides a clear WDW limit with standing wave solutions.

Abstract

The flat, homogeneous, and isotropic universe with a massless scalar field is a paradigmatic model in Loop Quantum Cosmology. In spite of the prominent role that the model has played in the development of this branch of physics, there still remain some aspects of its quantization which deserve a more detailed discussion. These aspects include the kinematical resolution of the cosmological singularity, the precise relation between the solutions of the densitized and non-densitized versions of the quantum Hamiltonian constraint, the possibility of identifying superselection sectors which are as simple as possible, and a clear comprehension of the Wheeler-DeWitt (WDW) limit associated with the theory in those sectors. We propose an alternative operator to represent the Hamiltonian constraint which is specially suitable to deal with these issues in a satisfactory way. In particular, with our constraint operator, the singularity decouples in the kinematical Hilbert space and can be removed already at this level. Thanks to this fact, we can densitize the quantum Hamiltonian constraint in a rigorous manner. Besides, together with the physical observables, this constraint superselects simple sectors for the universe volume, with a support contained in a single semiaxis of the real line and for which the basic functions that encode the information about the geometry possess optimal physical properties. Namely, they provide a no-boundary description around the cosmological singularity and admit a well-defined WDW limit in terms of standing waves. Both properties explain the presence of a generic quantum bounce replacing the singularity at a fundamental level, in contrast with previous studies where the bounce was proved in concrete regimes and focusing on states with a marked semiclassical behavior.