Higher-dimensional view on quantum cosmology

Abstract

We argue that the choice of boundary condition for the wave function in quantum cosmology depends on the UV completion of general relativity. We provide an explicit example using a braneworld scenario in which a de Sitter cosmology is induced on the surface of a Coleman-de Luccia bubble in a 5-dimensional AdS space. The corresponding boundary conditions are unambiguously fixed by demanding consistency with the known physics of bubble nucleation and this selects the Vilenkin weighting for the amplitude from a 4D viewpoint.