Building blocks for topology change in 3D
Abstract
We investigate topology change in 3D. Using Morse theory and handle decomposition we find the set of elementary cobordisms for 3-manifolds. These are: (i) <-> S2; (ii) g <-> g+1; (iii) g1 g2 <-> g1+g2 and they have appealing physical interpretations, e.g. Big Bang/Big Crunch, wormhole creation/annihilation and Einstein-Rosen bridge creation/annihilation, respectively. This decomposition into building blocks can be used in the path integral approach to quantum gravity in the sum over topologies.
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