On the Hawking Turok solution to the Open Universe wave function

Abstract

Hawking and Turok have recently published a solution to the WKB "wave-function for the universe" which they claim leads in a natural way to an open universe as the end point of the evolution for a universe dominated by a scalar field. They furthermore argue that their solution a preferred solution under the rules of the game. This paper will, I hope, clarify their solution and the limits of validity of their argument.