Universal Approach to Cosmological Singularities in Two Dimensional Dilaton Gravity

Abstract

We show that in a large class of two dimensional models with conformal matter fields, the semiclassical cosmological solutions have a weak coupling singularity if the classical matter content is below a certain threshold. This threshold and the approach to the singularity are model-independent. When the matter fields are not conformally invariant, the singularity persists if the quantum state is the vacuum near the singularity, and could dissappear for other quantum states.