Nonperturbative 2D Gravity, Punctured Spheres and $\Theta$-Vacua in String Theories

Abstract

We consider a model of 2D gravity with the coefficient of the Einstein-Hilbert action having an imaginary part $\pi/2$. This is equivalent to introduce a $\Theta$-vacuum structure in the genus expansion whose effect is to convert the expansion into a series of alternating signs, presumably Borel summable. We show that the specific heat of the model has a physical behaviour. It can be represented nonperturbatively as a series in terms of integrals over moduli spaces of punctured spheres and the sum of the series can be rewritten as a unique integral over a suitable moduli space of infinitely punctured spheres. This is an explicit realization \`a la Friedan-Shenker of 2D quantum gravity. We conjecture that the expansion in terms of punctures and the genus expansion can be derived using the Duistermaat-Heckman theorem. We briefly analyze expansions in terms of punctured spheres also for multicritical models.