A Two-Dimensional String Cosmology

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a two-dimensional string cosmology model with a time-dependent background, computing tree-level cosmological wavefunctions and numerically confirming a simple conjecture about the four-point wavefunction.

Contribution

It provides the first numerical evaluation of four-point cosmological wavefunctions in a two-dimensional string theory with a time-dependent background.

Findings

Numerical confirmation of a simple conjecture for the four-point wavefunction.

Explicit computation of three-point and four-point wavefunctions in a 2D string cosmology.

Insight into the structure of string perturbation theory in time-dependent backgrounds.

Abstract

We study two-dimensional string theory on a time-dependent background, whose worldsheet description consists of Liouville theory at central charge c = 1 and Liouville theory at central charge c = 25, together with the conformal ghosts. We compute the tree-level three-point and four-point cosmological wavefunctions in string perturbation theory. The latter is evaluated numerically by decomposing the Liouville four-point correlation functions into Virasoro conformal blocks and three-point function coefficients and integrating over the moduli space of the four-punctured sphere string diagram. This computation numerically confirms a surprisingly simple conjectural result for the four-point wavefunction whose physical interpretation remains to be clarified.