Absorption cross section in de Sitter space

Abstract

We study the wave equation for a minimally coupled massive scalar in three-dimensional de Sitter space. We compute the absorption cross section to investigate its cosmological horizon in the southern diamond. Although the absorption cross section is not defined exactly, we can be determined it from the fact that the low-energy $s(j=0)$-wave absorption cross section for a massless scalar is given by the area of the cosmological horizon. On the other hand, the low-temperature limit of $j\not=0$-mode absorption cross section is useful for extracting information surrounding the cosmological horizon. Finally we mention a computation of the absorption cross section on the CFT-side using the dS/CFT correspondence.