Lorentzian quantum cosmology in novel Gauss-Bonnet gravity from Picard-Lefschetz methods

Abstract

In this paper we study some aspects of classical and quantum cosmology in the novel-Gauss-Bonnet (nGB) gravity in four space-time dimensions. Starting with a generalised Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson Walker (FLRW) metric respecting homogeneity and isotropicity in arbitrary space-time dimension $D$, we find the action of theory in four spacetime dimension where the limit $D\to4$ is smoothly obtained after an integration by parts. The peculiar rescaling of Gauss-Bonnet coupling by factor of $D-4$ results in a non-trivial contribution to the action. We study the system of equation of motion to first order nGB coupling. We then go on to compute the transition probability from one $3$-geometry to another directly in Lorentzian signature. We make use of combination of WKB approximation and Picard-Lefschetz (PL) theory to achieve our aim. PL theory allows to analyse the path-integral directly in Lorentzian signature without doing Wick rotation. Due to complication caused by non-linear nature of action, we compute the transition amplitude to first order in nGB coupling. We find non-trivial correction coming from the nGB coupling to the transition amplitude, even if the analysis was done perturbatively. We use this result to investigate the case of classical boundary conditions.