Symmetries of Axion-dilaton String Cosmology

Abstract

The axion-dilaton string effective action is expressed in Einstein frame metric in a manifestly S-duality invariant form. It is shown that the moduli can be redefined to describe surface of a 2+1 dimensional pseudosphere. The classical cosmological solutions are of axion-dilaton are revisited. The Wheeler De Witt equation for the system is exactly solved and complete set of eigenfunctions are presented. The wave function factorizes and the one depending on the moduli is obtained by appealing to the underlying S-duality symmetry. Axion and dilaton parametrize the coset SU(1,1)/U(1), the S-duality group, and the Hamiltonian is expressed as a sum of the Ricci scalar and the Casimir of SU(1,1). Therefore, the complete set of wave functions, depending on the moduli, is obtained from group theory technique. The evidence for the existence of a W-infinity algebra in axion-dilaton cosmology is presented and the origin of the algebra is primarily due to high degree of degeneracies in the wave functions. It is qualitatively argued that axion-dilaton quantum cosmology exhibits chaotic behaviour in the semiclassical limit.