A Small-Throat Boundary Condition for the Tunneling Wave Function of the Universe

Abstract

We propose a small-throat prescription for the wave function of a closed universe in the Lorentzian path integral formalism, motivated by the idea that universe creation may be obtained as the decoupling, or pinch-off, limit of a tunneling geometry connected to another universe through a small throat. Instead of retaining the parent-universe side explicitly, we describe the remaining half-geometry by a minisuperspace path integral with boundary conditions imposed at the throat. To model the finite throat, we introduce a small radiation component parametrized by $ε$ in a closed minisuperspace model with a positive cosmological constant. The radiation term produces two turning points, an inner one $q_-\sim O(ε)$ and an outer one $q_+\sim H^{-2}$, where $q$ is the square of the scale factor. Our prescription imposes the Neumann condition $\dot q(0)=0$ at the initial endpoint and restricts the initial size $q_i=q(0)$ to a small-throat domain $0<|q_i|<\sqrtε/H$ that contains $q_-$. This restriction selects the Riemann sheet containing the small-throat tunneling saddle and its Picard--Lefschetz cycle, while excluding the unsuppressed saddle associated with the outer turning point $q_+$. Taking the limit $ε\to0$ after this finite-throat saddle problem has been defined, the small-throat domain collapses to $q_i \to 0$, and the saddle action reduces to that of the standard tunneling saddle. Other choices of lapse contour can instead select Hartle--Hawking-type growing branches. In this sense, the tunneling wave function can be obtained as the limiting form of tunneling from an arbitrarily small universe in a Lorentzian path integral, rather than by imposing a boundary condition directly at a vanishing geometry.